


King Hound II: The Fall

by roomsky



Series: King Hound [2]
Category: Warhammer Fantasy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 13:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 57,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13249284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roomsky/pseuds/roomsky
Summary: Hjolmar, Valka and Joric set their sites on Svarland itself, all the while coming to terms with increasing daemonic influence.





	King Hound II: The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that took longer than expected.
> 
> For those who don't recall, I wrote this up as background for the antagonist of one of my RPG campaigns. While I still strove to tell a complete story, there are some gaps here for you to fill on your own. I hope you enjoy it.

**King Hound II:**

**The Fall**

 

**Written by Roomsky**

**Edited by Non-Euclidean Planes**

 

**Rickard**

**2335**

“Mother?”

Rickard paced clumsily down the unlit hallway, the soft carpet pleasant under his small feet. Save for periodic shafts of moonlight, he was blind in the unlit halls. Even so, he walked with the naïve conviction of any four-year-old, more than once pacing headlong into the legs of his family’s many well-carved tables. Tears stained his puffy cheeks, but he was determined to remain silent. He was the prince of Hannesberg, and his mother told him that wailing did not befit one of his position, even while only a child.

            He had made this journey before. Sigmund, the resident priest and healer said he had more nightmares than expected for his age, and they plagued him several times a week. They were vivid, monstrous dreams that left in him a distress that only his royal mother could abate. She had a soft, maternal quality about her that no maid or servant could replicate, and so after numerous failed alternatives it was simply accepted that he would wake the queen in the event of his nightly terrors.

            He rounded the last familiar corner, and was surprised to find a shaft of light stark against the carpeted floor. He thought it odd; she was never awake at this hour.

            “Mother?” he repeated, moving his arm up to shield against the glare. He tried to squint through the light, but the image failed to resolve. It was not until he was all but through the door that the scene beyond became visible.

            “Mother?”

            She looked up at him with large, verdant eyes, surprise written clear across her tender features. The platinum-blonde hair she spent so long preparing every morning was strewn haphazard across her chest, resting voluminous on her thin neck and coiled fingers. It was there, wrapped about her hands, that the golden strands turned crimson. The blood stained her fingers, and the hilt of the dagger pressed into her gut. From there, a cloud of red crawled through her white silk nightgown, death’s talons slowly encircling her corpse.

            Above her body was his father, standing in a half-crouch while his hands worked tremulously. They were soaked in her blood. Everything seemed terribly out of focus but those hands, and the blood spattering slowly onto polished marble.

…

It was the morning light that woke him.

            Beams of gold stabbed through thin curtains over the mansion window, casting the bedroom in a harsh orange. He sat up lazily, regarding his own pitch silhouette stretching to the far wall. His shadow fell across the sleeping form of his companion, picturesque in her undress. He took a moment to drink in her naked form, from her slender legs to the curling black hair cascading across her shapely breasts.

            On another day he may have considered some playfully erotic way to wake her, but such thoughts had abandoned him. To his infinite dismay, they instead lingered on the fat menial who had delivered his fathers’ summons the day prior.

            “King Volkord wishes your presence in his study tomorrow at noon, my prince.” The portly man had said, wearing the same tired smile he paraded daily.

            Rickard made no effort to hide his surprise.

            “The Sons of Hror burn new townships by the fortnight, and you see fit to make jests at my expense?” Rickard had inherited his father’s height, and stared down at the chamberlain with a mix of confusion and irritation.

            “I am most sincere, my prince,” the man responded, now showing the same confusion as his master. “Though I have not a guess as to why. He simply ordered I deliver his summons, a word was barely spoken otherwise.”

He had dismissed the man shortly after, but the confusion had lingered long into the night and several glasses of wine.

            He ran his hands through his coarse, mud-blonde hair and untangled his legs from the linen sheets. His sire had never failed to observe empty courtesies. In Rickard’s youth, he had the finest toys. As a man, he wore the finest armor. His want of battle had been met with nothing but support from his father, and rarely was he denied even the most foolhardy requests. But beyond concessions, gifts, and pleasantries, they shared no love. They rarely spoke, and it was with increasing regularity that weeks would pass without so much as a glimpse of the man.

            “A few hours until noon yet, my prince,” Ellyn cooed lazily from the bed. “I can see the tension in you. I may have a method of calming your nerves before you depart.”

            Rickard turned to watch the young noblewoman lean back and kick what little sheets remained to conceal her fluttering onto the purple carpet.

            Rickard gave an internal curse at his father. Must so common an image call to mind that night?

            Ellyn seemed to notice the change in his face, and she wasted little time rolling forwards and wrapping her slender arms around his muscular frame. “Or… we could simply enjoy breakfast?”

            He struggled to hide his sudden discomfort. “I… will have to take you up on that tomorrow, my lady. With these raids on my future subjects unceasing, I have much on my mind.”

            She released him and slowly reclined back onto the stuffed mattress. “Strange,” she began, her voice dripping with sudden amusement. “It didn’t seem to stop you last night.”

            _That’s because I wasn’t dreaming of my mother’s corpse immediately before fucking you last night_ seemed a discourteous response. “I’m sorry; I’m just in no hurry to see my father today. Yesterday it seemed distant but now…”

            “Breakfast it is then,” she responded casually, already making for her lavender shift. “Some fresh cut pig will set you straight. You’ve never been very attractive when you’re moping, Rickard Volkord.”

 

**Hjolmar**

**2318**

He was falling. The clouds roiled black and violent over an immense stream of slaughter. Uncounted billions swarmed past a forest of monstrous black towers, screaming their prayers of blood and skulls even as they killed and died. Rough iron chains wrapped clumsily about his naked body, every clang of shifting metal on metal heralded the searing of a newer, darker mark than the last. He tried to cry out from the pain, but no sounds escaped his shriveled throat as he plummeted through the superheated winds, his ears filled with the mocking laughter of sentinel daemons. He wanted it to end, for his pitiful form to splatter upon the rapidly approaching ground and cease the unbearable pain.

But the ground never came.

…

Hjolmar jolted upright, wheezing and sputtering gobbets of spittle onto blood-caked sheets. Golden hair had tangled and clumped together with dried blood and vomit, and pulled painfully at his freshly bleeding scalp. Red streams trickled slowly from the bolts in his skull, the flesh surrounding the nails perpetually red and swollen.

            He hadn’t remembered climbing into bed. The nightmares had arrived in concert with the wrought-iron crown now permanently affixed to his brow, and so he avoided sleep for as long as he was able. He kicked the soiled sheets away and inspected his arms and legs, always expecting the black bite of searing chains to have followed him into the waking world. It was with a sigh of relief that he beheld only noisome filth.

            He struggled to stand. He felt weak, but couldn’t bring himself to eat more than the barest minimum. Everything he ate tasted of blood, and every scent was the smoke of burning corpses. His feet bled anew as he stepped across the shattered glass that littered the floor, the remains of a reflective hanging that seemed crafted for the sole purpose of fanning the vanity of previous residents. He did not mind the pain, however. The wounds in his dreams did not bleed, and the warm blood that seeped between his toes was comforting in its reality.

            He looked into the reflective shards, those not smeared with blood, and beheld a corpse. Gaunt and skeletal, its pale skin was marred by thick trails of blood. It shared Hjolmar’s iron crown, and his emerald stare.

            He ignored the wight, dismissing it as hallucination, and continued to the desk opposite his bed. He squatted on its undersized stool and haphazardly swept aside stacks of notes that seemed essential at their inception but now sickened him to even consider. These were joined on the cold floor by myriad lumps of wax that had once been candles. Soon all that lay before him was the book. One of Kel’s sacred tomes, its dried leather binding was pleasing under the flesh of his palm.

            The lone sigil that adorned its cover, a ring with the Reikspiel “v” at its crest, seemed to stare back at him as he regarded its beautiful simplicity. He imagined many would say their lack of understanding of the rune made it meaningless, but he knew better. He knew that simple words could not describe the depth of its significance.

            He fanned through the book, finding a random ingress. He kept a mental note of how many pages he had read, and with each passing day that number became more implausibly high. Yet every day also brought new content, some new well of knowledge he had not yet absorbed.

            He had learned of the realms beyond the veil, and the numerous steps needed to access them. He had learned the great subtleties of allegiance to the divine, and how the tiniest permutation might reap bountiful favor or infinite spite. He had learned rituals to imitate the _andi_ that spawned from the realm of the gods, to pass ones’ spirit into a suitable host and to travel incongruently through all being as they did.

All things but the answer he sought were held within, it seemed. All but the cure for this Iron Crown and its dreams of Hel.

            The constant throbbing in his skull made the passage of time feel like an eternity. To Hjolmar, the time since his seclusion began could have been minutes or centuries. He wondered if his people had abandoned him. He wondered if Joric still waited for his return.

            Pain lanced through his skull at the thought. His fingers instinctively found the rim of the crown, pulling and clawing until the skin had gone ragged in his vain attempt to stop the agony. He shuddered and thrashed and vomited, his failing body attempting every conceivable solution to the unbearable throbbing. When it finally subsided, his thoughts were again empty. There was only the book; the book would have an answer. It _must_ have an answer.

            He found his place and began to read anew, the subject once more altered into the unfamiliar.

           

**Ragarin**

**2318**

Ragarin and Mulkan fought back-to-back. Together, they were a small island, a black fang jutting from a sea of green. The tide roared in fury, a cacophony of guttural nonsense interspersed with smaller, equally angry voices. The brothers of the _Kol_ fought in tandem with a synchrony that required no verbal communication. They could feel each other’s movements; read the waves of each other’s killing. His warhammer pulped the skull of the ork before him, smashing its bloated form back into those of its fellows. Goblins, small but numerous, flooded around their clumsy masters and made ready to hack at him with woefully ineffective blades. He took them all with one sweep of his weapon, their tiny bones crunching satisfyingly as their mangled forms were swept aside.

             His brothers fought similar battles all throughout the field of greenskins, crushing and rending the small warband into ever growing ridges of foul-smelling corpses. The _Kol_ ’s usual formation had been broken quickly. The ork vanguard had charged in suicidal fervor, their only goal to force the dwarves apart.

            _All’s the better,_ thought Ragarin. He looked up to see a great gnarled thing, near twice the size of its fellows, violently part the slavering ranks before him. Ragarin tightened the grip on his weapon and grinned beneath his helm. _More for me_.

            When the battle was over, their once pristine armor ran verdant with blood. Ragarin stared at the stony ceiling, ragged breaths escaping dry lips as his body finally processed the strain it had endured. His brothers were the same, their armored forms showing rare fatigue as they absorbed the extent of their killing.

            Stevik spoke first, as he always did. Ragarin laughed in time with his brothers at the punch line, though he barely heard it. Something about a fight to the death relaxed him, the overwhelming violence of it all somehow feeding his amiability.

            “Good to see the new status quo hasn’t given us any lack of enemies to kill, eh Rag?” Zal patted him on the shoulder, the black plates clanking noisily together. “I think you got the biggest one this time.”

            “Well, it was no Winged Lord, brother. The elves may be feeble, but there is skill in their killing. The greenskins are giant children with blunted axes.”

            “I’ll be sure to say that at your burial when one of those ‘giant children’ smashes you flat with a club.”

            “Well, clubs are another story,” Ragarin said dryly. “Still, a real test of our mettle would be welcome. Something to make the parades King Rik throws on every return to Mountainhearth feel earned.”

            “I think you’re over-eager to join your ancestors, Rag.”

            Ragarin felt irritation creeping into his post-battle high. He took a moment to push it from his voice; he didn’t want his brothers to think him any sourer than they did already.

            “I think our blades grow dull on these animals, Zal.”

…

The sound of breathing was the only sign he had woken. There was tranquility in the dreams, an odd stillness that seemed unremarkable at the time. Now though, the wheeze emanating from tortured lungs seemed the only sensation that could be truly real.

            Beyond the breathing, there was nothing. His memory was feint, little more than the sound of breaking bones as the Norsca woman kicked him into the tunnel wall. Perhaps that had been imagined as well, the breathing seemed absent from his recollection.

            It didn’t much matter; he knew that this lack of feeling, this numbness, was his dying. A living man, after all, would be in agony. It was like he was already dead, silent and still, peaceful in the armor that would become his tomb. He could barely see out of his eyeslit, only some great shape made meaningless by the dark managed to resolve. One of his brother’s corpses, perhaps. Even with such thoughts, he could not muster the anger he knew he should be feeling.

            Had the savages left him to die? Did they assume he’d perished instantly upon that unforgiving stone? Perhaps they were ignorant to the slow, feeble death crawling into his limbs. Again, he was almost startled at his own indifference.

            He let his eyes shut once again. Resignation washed over him like a burial shroud, and a strange comfort filled his previously numb extremities.

            They were waiting beneath his eyelids. First was the Norsca, Hjolmar, screeching petulantly in his artless, northern tongue. Dangling from his hand were the heads of his brothers and master, fastened grotesquely to a chain of blackened iron. They stared at him accusingly from their trophy of mocking spectacle. The Norsca turned to Ragarin, adopting Khazalid that was no longer clumsy or broken. Thin lips parted, and Ragarin’s own baritone spilled into the quiet air.

            “You I have defeated most thoroughly. You I made abandon your duty.”

            _No_ , he thought, eyes snapping wide with sudden energy. No, fate was no longer in his hands. His contentment began to burn away, flimsy and unearned, evaporating as if it had never been. But his body, his prison, remained inert. Righteous fury churned inside him, a sudden madness that was choler and sorrow entwined into something far more potent. For all the bile welling in his veins, the broken corpse that enshrined him would not move. When he screwed his eyes shut in impotent frustration, Grobi Rik was waiting.

            Ragarin looked upon his king, in all his soft finery and softer flesh. His king, who in the absence of the _Kol_ would lead his people deeper into the yolk of Imperial rule; his king, who would see his people become as weak and corpulent as he himself had become; his king, who had sent his most loyal subject to die so he may excise any threat to his rule.

            Grobi Rik did not speak. He did not mock, nor jeer, nor challenge Ragarin’s honor. He did not even look at him. He simply wore a look of easy satisfaction.

            And that was enough.

 

**Joric**

**2318**

“Mother-“

             The plea was interrupted by another kick to his stomach. He felt like he was going to vomit, but there was nothing to expel. He covered his abdomen with both hands as he lay there, retching. The next kick sprained his fingers.

Joric didn’t want this. He never wanted this of course, but today had been going so well; perhaps that was why he pleaded when usually he remained silent. He pleaded even while knowing that it would not help him.

            His mother was rambling something about his missing sword work with the other boys. She was slurring, and with blood pounding loud in his ears couldn’t really hear her. Tears stained his swollen face, cut and bloody from when the beating began. She always started with his face, and he had been left uglier for it. Sometimes over dinner, his mother would threaten him with a future of such ugliness, as if that meant anything to his seven-year-old mind.

            When his dry heaving was allowed to coalesce into wheezing gasps, he knew it was over. There were no pauses during the beatings, only when Erva’s fury abated would it end. Even so, he laid there for a time, fantasies of a loving mother and matricide surging through his thoughts in equal measure. When he finally crawled to his feet the sky outside had gone black, and his mother had returned to the bottle.

            The cold air felt good on his bruises as he walked down emptying footpaths and away from the meager hut. Cook fires burned orange through longhouse windows, and those who remained outside were so only out of tardiness. It was a startlingly clear night, the black abyss overhead speckled with the souls of the dead. The white gaze of the moon, waxing full, stared in judgment.

Few regarded Joric as he navigated the weaving footpaths, none commented on his condition. Joric scarcely noticed them, either. His thoughts danced again around his mother, and her occasional excuses for his mistreatment.

            “I am wounded every time I strike you Joric,” she would say, as if the victim. “It is not a mother’s place to toughen their child. But without your father here, may he ride at Khorne’s side, I must take the discipliner’s mantle.”

            He sneered as the words echoed through his skull, a malignant tattoo that soon consumed his full attention.

            And then he was there, his bare feet landing on the hard and cold of a rocky beach. Hjolmar was waiting as always, torchlight burning from within their driftwood fortress. Their play here had been a ritual for nearly 8 moons, though Joric was still unsure whether it was genuine merriment or simply the company he enjoyed.

            “Who goes there?” Hjolmar shouted in his shrill voice, his attempts to deepen it into something menacing sputtering feebly.

            “It’s Joric.”

            _“Tis_ Joric,” he corrected, shoving the butt of his torch into a crack in the damp wood. He hopped off a small ledge and ran out to Joric, doubtlessly full of a new days’ catalogue of nominally interesting events.

            Instead of the routine outpouring, the Bonesplitter’s future jarl looked him up and down before asking “What happened to your face?”

            “What?” Joric asked, confused. He felt Hjolmar pat him on a tender cheek before displaying bloody fingers in the dim firelight.

            “You’re bleeding,” he said redundantly.

            Something like anger bubbled up in Joric’s chest. He wanted to scream at Hjolmar’s ignorance. But Hjolmar didn’t know, he had never asked. That made him angrier, made him want to throw up his hands and shout the horror spawned by his own parent on a weekly basis, for no reason beyond the absence of a father.

            But that was not Joric. He was quiet, and timid, and felt as though every time he tried to force the words they turned to mud in his throat. Whether it was by fear of further punishment or the uncertainty of how his sole friend would react, Joric could not produce the truth. He could not wear his heart on his sleeve.

            “I got hit by an ork,” was all he could produce. He knew the lie was stupid before he’d even finished saying it.

            Hjolmar’s eyes widened, and he looked at Joric as though he had suddenly sprouted six extra legs. Then, suddenly, the blonde boy burst out laughing.

            “A joke? I didn’t know you told jokes Joric!”

            Hjolmar’s oblivious grin somehow spread to Joric’s own face, and soon they were both laughing at his ridiculous explanation.

            _Joking feels good_ , he thought simply, as he and Hjolmar ran back to their ramshackle fortress for a game of “smash the dwarf”.  _Next time though, next time he asks I’ll tell him the truth. I’ll have the courage by then._

_…_

“Joric?”

            “What?” His voice sounded groggy, even to his own ears.

            “You fell asleep.”

            “No, just resting my eyes,” he replied, making no effort to rise from the oddly comfortable stone seat he found himself in.

            “So the five minute pause in explaining why you don’t need more sleep was to be dramatic?”

            Joric couldn’t help but grin at that, despite the sour mood recollection had summoned. He blinked his eyes open and slowly righted himself, suddenly finding the Dwarven furniture monstrously uncomfortable. Vidar sat across from him, a lithe but handsome warrior Valka had taken a liking to three days prior. Joric had no dislike for the man, though he found Vidar’s assumption that his being bedded by Valka somehow earned Joric’s friendship to be mildly annoying. Still, that he had reached the following dawn’s light without any broken bones was somewhat impressive.

            “You need to rest, Joric,” he said for what must have been the hundredth time. Joric had begun to find the swaying braids of his platinum mustache more captivating. “The Ghosts won’t tear themselves apart in one night.”

            Of that, Joric was skeptical. He had ruled in Hjolmar’s stead for two weeks, in which time his fellows had run out of corpses to appease their boredom and alcohol to keep them placated. It was only three nights past that two had killed each other over a bottle of piss they were both convinced was the last of the dwarves’ tasteless liquor. The only available food being barrels of salted fish did little to ease tensions, and a new dilemma seemed to manifest with each new day. The small warband was growing restless, eager for a fresh conquest that Joric could not produce.

            Atop the ever-expanding mountain of concerns was that of Sven. Every morning light brought with it some fresh case for his leadership being preferable to that of Hjolmar’s, and by extension, Joric’s. Joric held no disagreement with the latter point, and had quickly found command a tedious and disturbing exercise. He wondered if Hjolmar was forced to reduce his kinsmen to predicted actions as he did.

            Dealing with Hjolmar was no easier. His seclusion had rankled the Ghosts, and as the clan’s impatience built so too did the desire of an in-person explanation of their idleness. Joric shuddered to imagine what they would do to him in his present state.

            “Sven comes,” Vidar warned, nodding towards the hut’s rectangular doorway.

            Joric stifled his daydreaming, the idea of rest suddenly appearing more than reasonable.

The afternoon sun shone intensely through the mouth of the cave city, stark shadows growing off the precise buildings in black pools. The approaching men were made near-silhouettes by the glare, though there was no mistaking their identity. Few carried themselves with an arrogance to rival Hjolmar’s, and Sven’s seemed to grow with every passing day. In tow were Tomas and Holgir, a rather pungent duo of kinslayers whom Joric had tried to avoid until his de facto leadership forced their acquaintance. Both held carried freshly severed limbs, too dainty to belong to anything but a lowlander.

            “Go get Valka,” Joric instructed Vidar, leaning close so that only he could hear. “Tell her to bring the axes.”

            Vidar nodded once before slipping through the door. As Sven entered, he made a show of watching Vidar disappear into the blocky crush of Dwarven architecture.

            “Well, I was hoping for private conversation anyway. I’ll have these two step out.” His tone was thick with courtesy, the falseness of which irritated Joric more than Hjolmar’s blatant condescension ever did.

            “I command in Hjolmar’s stead, Sven. It is my place to say whether they stay or go.” He gave the two dullards a look that made it more than clear what he expected of them. While both seemed pensive at his glare, it was Sven’s nod of permission that bade them exit.

            Joric was unsettled by the action. What had Sven fed these people to command such loyalty? Had honeyed words eclipsed the killing of a daemon with ones’ bare hands?

Perhaps they disliked Joric’s killing the vitki with _his_ bare hands.

            “My shame for their disrespect, Joric. They get ahead of themselves. Though it brings us nicely to point-“

            “Well thank the gods for that,” Joric interrupted. “I’ve never figured out how to make you speak plain. And tell those dung-eaters to stop tormenting the slaves.”

            Sven laughed at that. “It is good to hear command has not pounded the mirth from you. But that, too, is the point. Your leadership is passive, Joric. You barely hold us together. The effort does you honor, but it cannot last forever. As for the slaves, well, they need _something_ to keep them busy.”

            “’ _Forever?’_ ” Joric let out something between a laugh and a growl. “It’s been two weeks. Hjol’s looking better every day, and you have my word on that. I doubt three days will pass before he’s back among the living.”

            Sven’s expression indicated he knew exactly how long it would take for Hjolmar to recover, if ever.

            “Well, this is just a contingency, then,” Sven began.

            “A what?”

            “ _A backup plan_ , in case our mighty leader has a relapse. Give me the command, Joric. Just until Hjolmar recovers, you have it on my honor. But you more than anyone have seen the growing tension in our little warband. We need to raid. We need plunder. Khorne only knows who they’ll start killing if something doesn’t change.”

            Joric tensed at the threat. He locked eyes with Sven, jaw set. His mind raced, searching for a retort. He tried to convince himself that splitting the bastard’s head open here and now wouldn’t be the end of them.

            Joric looked up at approaching footfalls. “Let’s ask Valka what she thinks, eh?”

            Sven’s face became the slightest shade paler as the Ghost’s only female warrior knelt through the low doorway, her skin glistening from whatever weapons practice they had interrupted. She all but knelt to keep her fiery hair from brushing the ceiling, a gesture which made the already squat Sven look comically tiny by comparison.

            “Joric, I thought this was between us?” Sven said, apparently calm but now lacking the pompous mirth he displayed on arrival.

            “Yes, I’m sure you did think that. You need to keep abreast of things if you want to lead, Sven. Now stop trying to take something not yours. Khorne only knows who might bash your face in for it.”

            A look from Valka kept the man from saying any more, and his usually polite departure was replaced by a look of pure bile. He walked to the door, all but sprinting away once past the threshold.

            When he was out of earshot, Valka spoke. “We should kill him, he’s stirring things up.”

            “Much as I’d like to, he has too much genuine support. Trust me; I saw it before you got here. We’re a small enough force as it is, if we have to start killing each other our next raid will be our last.”

            Valka snorted. “So we let him pit everyone against us, is that it?”

            “No,” Joric said, sighing. “Though until Hjol fixes himself, there’s not much we can do.”

            Valka’s glare was something Joric would rather have lived his life not seeing. “Then we need to stop burning time and help him! We’ve both seen how sick he is, yet here we sit, doing nothing.”

            “What can we do?” Joric responded, hands raised placatingly. “Hjol is smarter than the lot of us put together, Valka. We’d just get in his way. If Hjol needs us, he’ll tell us.”

            “Like on the boat?”

            “What?”

            “On the boat, Joric, where he tried fighting like an idiot. We knew it was a bad idea but said nothing, and he almost died for it. No, I don’t trust him to get out of this alone, especially all mangled like he is.”

             “What do you suggest then, oh wise and mighty Valka?” Joric snapped. He immediately regretted the acid in his tone. She was right, of course, in that blunt way of hers. Hjolmar wasn’t likely to come out of this without help, though he wasn’t sure if theirs was the help he needed.

            He was more certain that freedom from command may keep him from making such an ass of himself, however.

Valka only growled at his rebuke, though Joric could tell the next would earn him several broken bones. “`Don’t know. We’ll figure it out when we get there.”

**Ragarin**

**2318**

He was in an unfamiliar bed when the breathing came again. The room too was unknown, some small homestead with immaculately cleaned walls and minimal decoration. He attempted to leap upright, to seize his warhammer and discover where his brothers had-

            He ground his teeth as each limb protested immediately and agonizingly. It felt as though his entire body was being chewed on by squigs, a sensation he was not familiar with in such totality.

            The shock of pain brought his memory in flashes. _The gore-spattered wall. The blonde Northman, Hjolmar. Stevik’s lifeless corpse. The kick. Hror’s decapitation. Hjolmar. The corpses. Grobi Rik. Hjolmar!_

            Ragarin screamed his fury. The roar was absorbed limply by the barren walls, his frustration reduced to a petulant wail. Almost immediately, the weight of exhaustion returned in force. He fell to empty sleep, now black and dreamless.

            He woke in much the same way several times, occasionally varying in precisely how excruciating his attempts to move were. He recognized well the feeling of impotence that accompanied pulverized limbs. The splints and bandages swathing his inert form signaled that whoever kept him here seemed intent on his recovery. Whoever kept him here also did not deign to show their face, or explain where he was or what had become of his brothers. The unknowing alone made Ragarin want to strangle his host.

            On his sixth awakening, they met.

            The dwarf was old and wrinkled, with a barren scalp and a long but unornamented beard of ivory hair. Tiny spectacles framed a crooked nose, and his lined mouth hung open slightly as he worked. A slight wheeze passed his lips with each breath. While his bent body exuded frailty, his hands moved with the deft grace of an elven war dancer. They dripped red as he stitched, re-stitched, and freshened bandages.

            “He wakes,” the old man rasped, not looking up from his work. “What luck. You were blubbering incoherently the last time we met.”

            Ragarin made no effort to hide his confusion. Was this some strange vengeance? A slight long forgotten only now being acted upon? Ragarin could not place the dwarf anywhere in his memory.

“Don’t think too hard, honoured _Kol_ , you have no talent for it.”

Ragarin’s attempt to throttle the greybeard did not go as intended. His especially violent rise had barely begun before a bloody hand met a pectoral suture and pressed down, sending daggers through his lungs and a wheeze from his throat.

“Aye, thank you for illustrating my point. Now stay still or your wounds will re-open. Did you know one of your shins was actually backwards when you arrived? It’s amazing you could move at all, frankly.”

“Arrived where?” he winced, his voice like tumbling gravel.

“Ah, the grand hovel that is Drez, in the meager housing of one Daal. We feasted you here not four nights past. Imagine our collective surprise when one of twenty-one _Kol_ hobbles back through our gates with a headless corpse on his back; more so when you almost immediately fell face-first into the mud.”

“Where…” he was fighting for consciousness again, and the throbbing pain dimmed his senses. “Where is Hror?”

“Ah, the corpse. I dressed it best I could and left it in the next room over. His armor is being repaired and polished by the locals so you may bury him with dignity, as much as one can muster when the body is missing its head.”

Ragarin roared and thrust himself at the healer, his fury numbing the elderly dwarf’s frail attempts to keep him at bay. His hands closed around Daal’s throat, veins bulging in his thick forearms as he squeezed.

He felt the icy kiss of steel at his throat, but did not abate. “My brothers are dead and my oaths broken, graybeard. Do you think I fear death now?”

“I think…” Daal struggled to speak, and panic was beginning to stain his voice. “You didn’t walk here to die, honoured _Kol_. Let me help you.”

Ragarin leaned close, feeling the blade biting shallow into his neck. “Show me and my kin the respect they deserve, or the next time I get my hands on you I will start with something more sensitive.”

Ragarin did his best to appear sturdy as he descended the mattress, in truth lacking even the strength to wipe the blood from his neck. For his part, Daal smoothed his beard with a tremulous hand before making a hasty exit.

With time Ragarin’s ventures into lucidity became lengthier, though Daal’s appearances were uncommon and they did not speak again after that first encounter. Instead, Ragarin passed the time entertaining thoughts of killing Hjolmar and Grobi Rik, imagining increasingly brutal manners in which to dispatch them. Soon, however, the questions of _what_ became questions of _how_. Hjolmar concerned him little, strength of arms could be matched in many ways, and the Norsca’s martial pride should at least make them receptive to challenge. Grobi Rik would pose the greater test; Ragarin would not skulk like a rat in his own city, and he had no doubt the bastard would turn the small folk against him before he reached the first keep. He was only Ragarin Dreng; to his people he was one of The Twenty, and to his acquaintances he was simply unpleasant.

There would be no fanfare upon his return, even less while he carried Hror’s corpse on his back.

It was in the midst of these thoughts that Daal returned, bearing his usual mix of fresh bandages and healing oils. Ragarin wondered if the old dwarf would help him if told of this budding treason. He did not know what to make of the graybeard. Violence often revealed one’s character, but Daal was unreadable even in the wake of their brief struggle.

“Old man,” Ragarin began as his wounds were being dressed. “You look to have at least fifty and two-hundred years on you, yet you speak like an arrogant youth. A rarity, I’d say.”

A petulant smile formed on the healer’s lips. “Aye, honored _Kol_ , though I fear to speak before your magnificence, for fear of being justly punished once more.”

Ragarin’s irritation bubbled anew. “Speak plainly then, I won’t strike you unless you insult our honor. And I am Ragarin Dreng, call me as such, your false courtesy is starting to annoy me.”

“Fair enough, Ragarin Dreng, though I did not mean to question the honor of you or your brothers. That said, if you do not admit that your attack was… ill-advised, I fear you may be joining your master in the ground rather quickly.”

“It was not our choice,” Ragarin grumbled. “We were sent to die. My living is only a small part of the revenge I’ll take for that.”

Daal made a face that was hard to read. Reminiscence, perhaps? Ragarin could not tell.

“Revenge,” he said, quietly. “Ragarin Dreng, the bones of your left foot are largely powder. Your knees are weak and will buckle easily. The tendons in your right forearm are mostly severed and three of your fingers on that same hand will never flex again.”

Ragarin raised the limb in question as the old dwarf spoke, confirming his assertions with painful effort.

“If you were meant to die, take life as your revenge, as you have said. Expect not any greater vengeance, else you’ll quickly find even that solace undone.”

Ragarin’s curiosity turned to disgust. “Whatever you ran from, you old bastard, you did it like an _E_ _lf_. We are the children of the stone, and we do not bend to adversity.”

“No,” Daal answered, apparently unoffended. “You snap, and shatter, and die, like your twenty ‘unstoppable’ brothers. Better to live, and wait for the opportunity.”

“If I wait,” Ragarin responded instantly, unconvinced, “I will go as white as you, and Grobi will eat himself into his grave faster than such miracles will appear. No, I will forge my own recompense.”

“How, then?” asked the elderly dwarf, giving voice to Ragarin’s own thoughts. “You are no Hror, no heroic champion of the people. Who will support Ragarin Dreng, but one of the many _Kol_?”

Something about those words gave spark to an idea. Small embers of potential quickly flared into a roaring inferno, possibility upon possibility becoming desirable reality in his mind.

 _No_ , he thought. _No, that is blasphemous. All I do is to preserve our laws, our honor. My course must be just. My very soul is false if I build it upon betrayal and deception._

Yet still, the thought persisted. He held it close for many nights, his only real companion in this strange, empty house. But with each day he entertained the idea, there would come a night of self-loathing, a chastisement of the abomination forming in his mind. Yet where his dreams had once been an empty void, they now brought forth visions of his failure, of Grobi Rik’s abject victory. He dreamt the destruction of every ideal his master had fought for.

The answer came with his recovery. It had taken weeks of healing, and weeks more of practice before he could stand again. He could feel his new fragility, the pain in his limbs and the limpness of his gestures, but movement was his once more.

As Daal watched on, he rose from the bed that was his prison for the final time. It was only then that he really seemed to process the old dwarf. He looked upon Daal’s limbs, thin and wasted, at the platinum hair running thin from a wrinkled scalp. He had a crooked back and failing eyes, and some nights Ragarin could hear coughing fits that lasted for hours on end.

_This dwarf is weak. He is the frail wisp none of my people should live to become. If I forestall my vengeance, will I wither into the same husk, waiting for an opportunity that will never come?_

The answer was as obvious as it was inevitable.

“Daal, show me to my master. Bring me to Hror.”

 

**Hjolmar**

**2318**

**This champion lets himself waste away in the company of useless books.** The voice was the searing winds of the fall, and the chorus of angry screams from below. The chains rattled, and his skin hissed and bubbled as they burned him. It was a voice not of words, but of meaning distilled.

 **Has so little pain addled your mind?** The voice was mocking now, the mosaic of sound running thick with bile. **You know what your master is owed.**

…

Hjolmar’s dreams of Hel were interrupted by a steady knocking sound. He was more than grateful. The elation turned to annoyance, however, as the knocking persisted, reverberating through the wooden door of his sanctum. The noise was accompanied in short order by a hideous throbbing from his crown.

“Quiet…” a muted, rasping voice said. “Quiet… quiet!” The voice’s attempt at a scream only made it more pitiful, a shrill wail in the dark. He rolled from his bed of glass and began a slow crawl to the door; his hands quickly running warm and wet as they split upon the myriad shards. Only when he slipped on his own blood, landing with a painful crunch on the detritus beneath him, did he realize the voice had been his own.

The silence returned. It was almost peaceful, then. Even the pain in his brow could not undo his newfound relaxedness.

What little tranquility he could grasp was shattered along with the door, which exploded into splinters and admitted the deep blue of evening light, something Hjolmar had not seen in what felt like an age. Panic filled him as he twisted away from the emanation, burying his face in thin arms to flee the moon’s gaze.

“Hjolmar?” The voice was familiar, but he could not put it to a face, not anymore. His memories had become twisted abominations, caressing hands became claws and joy bubbled into charcoal fury.

“Hjolmar!” this one was different, shriller and more unhinged. He felt hands on his back and he scrambled away from their grasp, grabbing a jagged shard from the floor and spinning to meet his attackers.

His arm was halted as both wrists were caught by his assailant. The man was impossibly strong, and it felt as though his hands would shatter Hjolmar’s own if pressed any tighter.

He could not see the man’s face, haloed by the silver moon. “Hjolmar!” the man said again, in a voice waxing to the familiar. Hjolmar raged against his bonds, kicking feebly against the man’s iron limbs and butting his spiked crown at the stranger’s face. The bite of the rusted tines made his attacker recoil.

The vice about his wrist loosened fractionally, and Hjolmar tore his right hand free. His glass weapon dug deep into the palm with the effort. He tackled the man, still off balance, and sent them both crashing to the disarray below. The man tried to grab him again, but by now both their limbs ran slick with blood and they slid off each other with ease. Hjolmar raised his knife and hammered at the man’s hasty defense, mashing his muscular arms with manic repetition.

When the warding limbs finally parted, Hjolmar stared down into a hideously familiar face. His plain but uneven features, marred now by three bloody scars, stared out from beneath a mop of tangled, brown hair. His eyes were an icy blue, and when they met Hjolmar’s the creeping memories solidified into certainty.

“Joric..?” the pathetic voice said again. The throbbing in his skull began anew, quicker and more intense than before.

 ** _Kill him_** , the pain said, in the voice of his dreams, now weaved of agony over wind. _**Kill him. Maim him. Burn him. He makes you weak. He makes you unworthy. Spill his blood. Take his skull.**_

 _No_ , he thought, remembering who he was, feeling the veil in his mind peel away like smoke before a wash of wind. Urges of murder and defiance wrestled in his mind, coming to blows he could feel like a sword through the gut.

**_Kill him_ ** _. Kiss him. Spill his guts. **Smash his skull**. Rip him apart. **Hug him**. Hate him. Fuck him. Wet the earth with his gore and share your mead with his corpse._

“No!” he screamed in his pathetic, quiet voice. He threw the knife against the wall, watching it shatter into glittering nothingness.

**_You spurn your blessing. Motivation is not punishment._ **

            The agony in his head began to abate with whatever madness had possessed him, reason fighting desperately to take its place.

            **_Keep your pathetic weakness, then._**

            And with that, things went still. He looked about, at the filth smeared across the room and himself, at the piles of notes and books wet with bodily fluids, at the smashed mirror and furniture, and at the runes he had carved upon the walls. He looked down at Joric, now palming the gashes across his face, and at Valka, who had gone wide-eyed at the unfolding spectacle.

            All at once, the stink of blood and shit filled his nostrils, hunger ripped at his stomach and lethargy sized his limbs. Unconsciousness swallowed him, and the fall waited behind sleep’s midnight curtain.

…

            The dreams did not change. Still they came with chains of scorched black, volcanic winds, and the screams of the dying. When he woke, however, change was beyond evident. He was on his bed, and for what felt like the first time the soft straw felt pleasant beneath his aching limbs. He could feel the pollution caking his body and shift, now disgusted rather than oblivious. The crown still throbbed, but compared to the active pounding that had come before its ache felt nearly as nothing.

            Joric stood at his bedside, while Valka and one of the Ghosts moved in and out of the hut with steaming buckets of water, filling a tub which had been hastily dragged into the nearby room. His face was bandaged over fresh lacerations, but even so the sight of him returned small life to Hjolmar’s wasted limbs.

            “He lives,” Joric began, turning his head so the others could hear. “I know you didn’t appreciate my calling you _highness_ , but I hadn’t expected you to attack me over it.” His mouth was pulled into his usual petulant grin. It was an expression Hjolmar couldn’t help but match.

            “Well, apparently I tried coating myself in shit first, to appear less regal. Then I thought you would surely make japes about my being the ‘King of Shit’ or some such, and the plan soured.” They laughed again, and Hjolmar felt joy’s embrace for the first time in what felt like decades. “Sorry about the face,” he added after their giggling subsided.

            Joric waved a dismissive hand “Ah, worry not. Not as though my face was much to look at before anyhow. Maybe now I’ll seem battle-worn enough for the ladies to fawn over.”

            Hjolmar pushed himself upright, struggling to keep balance. His head was still swimming from starvation. “Who is that?” he asked, nodding to Vidar.

            Joric gave the warrior a sidelong glance. “Nothing special, but he seems reliable enough.”

            “How long have I been here?” he asked. It was the first of several questions pertaining to the warband’s number, their reaction to Kel’s death, and Hjolmar’s condition and popularity.

“Well, if I’ve been gone for two weeks, I don’t blame them for growing restless. It was hardly promises of rest and relaxation that had them cheering my name. Still, cleaned and back in furs and armor, I’m sure they’ll barely-“

            “They’re rallying behind Sven,” Valka announced wearily from across the room.

            Hjolmar felt something in his face twitch. “Apologies, I think I misheard.”

Valka let her bucket fall noisily before marching over to join them, leaving Vidar to nearly trip over the discarded vessel. “He told everyone you’re not fit to lead anymore, that he’d do better. I think about half listened to him.”

            Hjolmar’s face tightened into a rictus of incredulity. He was vaguely aware of Joric wilting under his gaze. _They watched me kill a daemon with my bare hands_. His hands were working, a tremor running through them as he struggled to appear stoic. _I defeated a feared warrior in combat one-armed. I freed them from the yolk of Kel. I transformed them from a long ship full of corpses into a warband._

He could just barely hear his own breathing over the pounding in his ears. He wanted to kill someone. He wanted to kill everyone. Joric was saying something, but Hjolmar wasn’t listening. His mind flooded with all manner of protracted murder, be it on Sven alone or those who had chosen to follow him. Hjolmar had been betrayed, abandoned by his flock the moment he had turned his gaze from them.

            “Hjolmar?” Joric asked again, this time cutting through the fugue of his anger. He noticed he was now standing and that his skin had grown slimy, fresh sweat mingling with the filth that already sheathed him. For a moment he feared this might signal continued, uncontrolled lapses into the madness that had possessed him prior, but as his fury receded beneath his skin, he wondered if it was instead a sign. The voice in his head had demanded blood and skulls, perhaps those of his betrayers would fill that quota. He would certainly take no shortage of pleasure in acquiring such a tribute.

            Only now did he notice the concern written across the faces of both Valka and Joric, almost comical in their similarity. He forced a smile, allowing his body to relax and ease the worry of his closest brethren.

            “I have a plan for Sven,” he lied, returning to his seat. He regarded his grotesque shift, sneering exaggeratedly at his own condition. He stole a quick glance back up at his companions to ensure their worry had eased. “I need time to make certain the details. Return to me in the morning, when I won’t look and smell like a pig drowned in offal.”

            They obeyed without comment, for which Hjolmar was grateful. He turned to the steaming tub they had prepared, eager to begin the process of personal restoration. Robbed of the fervor that had gripped him moments before, his first attempt to stand saw him tumble back onto the floor, thankfully cleared of debris while he had been unconscious. He forced himself to his feet almost immediately, though the attempt ended as the first had. He repeated this pattern until he reached the basin, knowing that he would need to stand by the time he dealt with the Ghosts, be it with speech or sword. He peeled away the soiled cloth, struggling where it had dried tight onto his skin, and threw the tatters into a heap before clumsily lowering himself into the tub.

            The blood and filth spread from him like a cloud as he slid into the heated water. He held his hands beneath the surface, and watched as the gashes in his palms slowly ran dry of their crimson excretions. Next was his hair, clumped and painfully tangled about the crown’s rusted spikes. He continued methodically, moving from one area to the next, forcing order into his routine once more.

            When he was satisfied, the water had gone nearly opaque, a vile brown soup he was more than happy to dump through the floor grate. When he had dried, stitched, and bandaged, he stood again. Another stumble returned him to the floor, but no sooner was he back on his feet. Through the night he continued, standing just a little longer each time.

 

**Joric**

**2318**

            Joric fell to the floor, Hjolmar suddenly a conduit of strength that had been in absence moments before. Glass crunched beneath him as he landed, shards embedding themselves into flesh and armor. Joric fought the urge to reach for his dagger, and instead threw up his arms in meager defense, thoughts scrambling for a way to incapacitate his friend without snapping his frail body in twain.

            The crazed Hjolmar hammered him with bony fists and headbutts made savage by the ring of metal clamped to his skull. Iron knives tore through Joric’s exposed skin, the shredded flesh hissing with a pain Joric had never before experienced. He felt fire bleed into his veins, now running hot with corruption. Worse still, each strike seemed to stoke his fury, and angry frustration was rapidly overtaking restraint. When a lucky hit pushed his arms away and dug three bloody ravines through his face, it was all he could do to keep himself from beating Hjolmar into a sticky pulp.

            Hjolmar hesitated suddenly. Joric’s fury was quickly exceeded by fear as he saw Valka approach the maddened warlord from behind, axe ready to strike if it meant sparing Joric. He signaled for her to stop with a raised hand, half-expecting Hjolmar to resume his madman’s assault. Instead, he simply stared, eyes wide as if seeing Joric for the first time.

            “Joric..?” His voice was so thin, Joric was unsure he had spoken at all. Eyes rolled backwards into his abused skull, and Hjolmar’s body crumpled to the floor, crown striking the stone with a loud clang _._

For a time, Joric and Valka kept their silence, both staring wide-eyed at the frail waif their friend had become. It seemed like hours before Valka spoke.

            “He is too weak,” she said matter-of-factly, as if describing the sky as blue.

            “Not now,” Joric said, attempting to inject his voice with what little authority he could muster. Lingering pain turned the words into a snarl.

_Our friend is lying near-dead on the floor, and my damned indecision is what let this happen. Now is not the time for arguing his fitness to lead._

            “Joric, we don’t have time to heal-”

            “I said not now!” He roared, clumsily forcing himself to unsteady feet. Blood matted his face, and that which had run into his mouth spattered Valka’s jerkin as he spoke.

            Valka’s eyes narrowed, her grimace not so much as twitching. Joric wondered if this was what her enemies saw moments before their deaths. Rage flared inside him, as if it were bleeding from his wounds. Relief came just as easily as she broke their stare and quit the stony hovel, shouting for Vidar. Joric breathed a sigh of relief, only then realizing his knuckles were white with tension.

…

            When he had left the hut, face bandaged and Hjolmar’s condition addressed, Valka spoke again.

            “He is too weak. He cannot lead us.”

            Her flippancy irritated him, more so that she hadn’t dismissed Vidar before beginning this conversation. “You speak as if he isn’t our friend. You speak as if he didn’t get us this far. You saw, he recovers already. We just need to-“

            “`He tries to lead like this, he’ll die. I won’t see him torn apart by Sven and his dogs. I also won’t see him killed on the field of battle, his twig limbs snapped by somebody’s war hammer.”

            Joric laughed at that, a humorless, loud thing that sounded mad even to his own ears. “Was that hypocrisy, Valka? You encouraged this in the first place. You think Hjol cares about life for its own sake? Do you think any of us do? If you respect him at all, you’ll honor his word until we rule the world or he dies trying. That drive is what lead us here. By the Four, it’s why he killed a hellhound with his bare hands.”

            It was Valka’s turn to laugh. The woman’s smile was a rarity Joric had seldom witnessed, and it had never been anything but cruel and ugly. The scars and contours of her face were black in the dimly-lit streets, illuminated only by the few sconces their fellows had bothered to light. “You’ve not changed since the day we met, Joric. So this time I’ll tell you instead of asking. Tomorrow, I’ll gather those I’ve kept loyal. Tomorrow night, I’ll kill Sven and everyone who tries to stop me.”

            With that, she turned and stalked off, Vidar close behind. Joric felt like a babe struck for the first time, bordering on panic and stilted by inaction. This struggle was not his intent. Hjolmar’s recovery was to unite them again, not incite further fractures.

            Joric did not sleep that night. What little relief he had gained in helping Hjolmar withered before Valka’s proclamation. He was more than aware it was not his own strength that kept the Ghosts in line.

When he had abandoned all hope of proper rest, he walked, as was his way. The salty wind of the ocean funneled into the cave city, but the myriad scents of these churning waves were a pale imitation of those he had grown up with. In truth, he hated Urbaz more than he hated its people. Everything was too small, and the dwarves’ craftsmanship was colder than his icy birthplace. Furs and skins and wood held a glimmer of the life that once filled them, and possessed a sort of warmth few would admit, but all had enjoyed. Here though, these stone houses had quickly shown their deadness. There was no passion or risk in their building. There was no life to any of it.

            The scenery was not improved by the corpses of its old masters, strung up and hacked apart and piled in heaps of dead flesh. The city had become a shrine to death. He wondered at the depth of pleasure Olavi took from arranging it so.

It seemed no time at all before the sun began to cast its light on the back wall of the cavern, setting the cold grey to vibrant yellows and angry purples. It struck him as grimly amusing that he’d craved sleep while in charge, but now free of that burden it refused to manifest.

            He returned to Hjolmar’s dwelling, knowing he would not see Valka there as Hjolmar had requested. He was surprised to find it nearly pristine, his fouled shift now feeding a warming fire in the hearth. Hjolmar himself stood in loose furs, pouring over the notes now neatly stacked and remarkably thinned from the volume they had possessed half a day prior.

            He straightened when he noticed Joric, assuming the easy, pompous posture he normally wore. Despite his tidied appearance, both hands were wrapped in bloodied rags that left only his fingertips exposed. His eyes had not lost the fatigue that had plagued them on his waking; evidently Joric was not the only one to experience a sleepless night.

            “Joric,” he said warmly, some strength present in his voice again. If he was surprised at Valka’s absence, he showed no sign. “Help me into my armor. We have work to do.”

 

**Ragarin**

**2318**

The forge was empty at Ragarin’s request, and he was left alone with nothing but the sounds of heavy bellows, the rhythmic clang of hammer on steel, and his thoughts. He had been away from the forge for too long, scorched air burned his lungs and licked painfully across his fresh scars. The diffuse orange light danced as glowing embers fluttered, the luminescent eye of the smelter burning hot at its center.

            They had marched for weeks now, Ragarin and Daal, and at each new township and villa they would speak loud their plight, of the terrible Norscan invaders and the treachery of King Grobi Rik. Yet even as the host at his back grew, Ragarin’s apprehension did not abate.

            The tale he wove was a lie, as was the mantle he now wore. He preached falsehood after falsehood, that the _Kol_ had died not in vain, but in a glorious battle that saw great numbers of the enemy laid low. He told of how the leader of the northmen, more beast than man, had fallen beneath his hammer, while the cowardly had fled behind the craven Hjolmar. He told of how Ragarin Dreng had died with his brothers. He told of how Hror had lived.

            The shame ate at him unceasingly. His grand deceit was disgraceful, dishonorable; no righteous purpose could overcome that truth. Yet he had made his choice, and now there could be no backward stride. It was difficult to keep his hammer blows from echoing the fury now bubbling beneath his skin; he would not see the many hours already spent wasted because of one frustrated bludgeon of the metal.

The helmet he wore was a crumpled and battered thing, unworthy of the armor it crested. True, the craftsmanship of the _Kol_ ’s war gear was nigh peerless, but Hror’s had been better still; even damaged it made the uniforms of his brothers pale by comparison. While Kheldin’s mines did not produce the rare materials he may have preferred to work with, mastery of steel and gromril would produce a reasonable facsimile.

It took him close to a week to finish the helm, the angles and thickness painstakingly manipulated into a nigh-indestructible plough, two thin eyeslits all that distinguished the headwear from some kind of master crafted wedge. Before polishing the armor piece, he clutched it tight in both hands and rammed it against the stone wall of the forge. The impacts sent shudders up his wounded limbs, and he could feel delicate suturing tearing open anew, but he did not abate until the smooth surface cracked and chips of shattered stone collected at his feet.

He withdrew the helmet from the wall, flipping it in sweat-slick hands to regard where it had battered the stone. It was caked in dust and rubble, but had earned no scars and bore no dents.

He supposed it was passable enough.

…

            Ragarin had not chosen Kheldin for its forge, nor for its resources and people. The meager settlement was instead the only one beneath Svarland, Mountainhearth notwithstanding, to house a temple dedicated to Grimnir. Of the uppermost trifecta of ancestor gods, Grimnir’s snarling visage displayed perfectly his virtues, those of courage, honor, and prowess in battle. Above all, it was Grimnir that blessed those seeking honorable death.

            Ragarin knew the ancestor gods’ judgment waited only after ones’ demise, but he felt as though stepping through the temple door, sculpted into Grimnir’s great maw, would invite an early reckoning. Still, he knew he must pray before the war god’s altar. What response he got, if any at all, would supply the only course of action that may cleanse his soul’s dishonor. Certainly, it seemed no earthly action would suffice to scrape away his sins.

            He donned Hror’s armour and stepped clear of the forge for the first time in days. Cool underground air filled his lungs in stark relief to the sweltering fumes he had breathed for the past week.

            When he emerged from the acrid smoke, it was Hror the Unyielding whose boot met the dirt road.

            The unearned reverence shouted by every passerby did nothing to improve his mood, and he fought to appear at ease. His hands were the hardest to control; while the helmet shielded his tense features from the world, it was a constant struggle to keep his fingers from curling into angry fists, such as they could with his injuries.

            The host that followed his trek to Mountainhearth was growing quickly; the throng of disgruntled peasantry and young warriors eager to prove their worth swelled with each new settlement. Every town brought fresh opportunity to spread his propaganda, and in the face of the legendary Hror, few could deny the call to arms.

            “Mighty Hror!” came a voice from behind him, in part muffled by the throng of smallfolk who seemed eager to operate as close to their hero as possible.

            He had expected another warrior so full of pride he insisted on swearing his service to Hror personally, or perhaps Daal limping through the crowd to deliver fresh word of the local disposition.

            Instead he turned to find a boy, some adolescent whose beard was barely half way to his collar bone. He stood at what Dreng assumed was a peasant’s idea of attention, arms thrust straight and rigid towards the ground.

            “Mighty Hror,” he repeated, his voice stressed to appear lower than it actually was. “I noticed you have no squire, and that only the honored greybeard Daal tends to your arming. Please grant me the honor of fulfilling this role for you, the greatest warrior of our time!”

            Ragarin could scarcely recall when he had last wanted to laugh; the concept seemed so foreign to him that he very nearly burst into a fit as the boy spoke. He was relieved the helm concealed the uninvited smile. He considered censuring the youth for his impertinence, such a request would have been an insult to any of the _Kol_ , much less the leader they had trained for nearly a decade to work alongside.

            Looking up from the boy, Ragarin noticed a small gathering of other adolescents, all sniggering and pointing to the would-be squire. Palpable nostalgia reminded Ragarin of another youth, much like the one before him, desperate to prove the courage others doubted.

It was not, however, for shallow personal fondness that he elected to entertain the boy. For too long had martial respect become banal tradition. Here was not only straightforward and honest behavior, but courageous as well; no doubt the youth was more than aware of the great risk he had taken in asking so candidly, goading peers or not.

            That he would be forced to bring this child into his confidence was the caveat. While Hror’s reputation was better known than his visage, to present himself unarmored would quickly reveal the lie he had worked so hard to cultivate. He needed to know if he could trust this boy.

             “You know of my advisor Daal, yes?” he said after a moment. “Go to him, tell him what you desire, and accept his judgment. When that is done, no matter the verdict, return and inform me of what he said. Is this understood?”

            The boy looked more surprised than anything, his anticipation of binary success or failure subverted. After a moment, his energetic determination reemerged.

            “As you command, Mighty Hror.”

            When he had gone, Ragarin allowed himself the small pleasure of gazing back at the incredulous faces of the boy’s enablers.  


…

The maw of Grimnir’s temple held no foyer between its blocky teeth, the immediate, unlit decline instead gave the impression of passage into a great stone belly. No greenskin or war dancer had ever so much as given Ragarin pause, but this aspect of his most vaunted deity made him question his own courage.

            He made the descent despite himself, half expecting the walls to constrict and smash him into whatever hell awaited his unique brand of treason.

            The base of the ramp gave way to an immense chamber, a monument to simple geometry. The cleanly hewn brickwork formed towering support pillars and beams, though it housed no walls and little ornamentation. Bare-chested menials attended to the temple’s upkeep, their scarred flesh rippling with muscle. These warriors had volunteered their fealty until fresh battle called to them, venerating their god through service when unable to sate him with blood.

            On a central dais was the temple’s high priest, a greybeard seemingly immune to the frailties of aging. On his head he wore Grimnir’s fearsome aspect, a stylized snarl of metal and stone. Beyond the helm his form was bare, a latticework of scars matting his calloused skin. In his hand was a cudgel of flexible leather that made permanent injury a rarity, though its strike no less painful.

            The priest inclined his head to Ragarin. “You seek god’s word?” he asked in a reverberating baritone. Unlike the soft _umgi_ and their gentle idols, no simple prostration would garner notice from one such as Grimnir. Only blood and battle would bring forth the word of such a deity.

            “I do, my priest,” Ragarin responded, and by raising his arms signaled the attendant menials to remove his war plate. Soon he was near naked save for a helm of his own. He was given a short blade to fight with, which would end the combat at first blood. The bout lasted near half an hour.

            The war-priest quickly proved his experience; often avoiding the blade by such thin margins, only the lack of a fresh scar proved his evasion. Ragarin knew of twelve different fighting styles, two of which were designed with the short blade in mind. Even the rapid cycling between these forms, bolstered with the occasional lunge or riposte from one of his sword styles, proved insufficient.

            By contrast, the priest landed blow after blow with his cudgel, paying no heed to the myriad injuries that still plagued Ragarin’s flesh. Ragarin did not so much as groan as his body was struck repeatedly with rapid timing, though he was soon purple with welts and bruises.

            As the fighting progressed, it became clear that it was not insufficient practice which dulled his prowess, but insufficient ability. Daal had been correct. He was broken, a child’s doll cut apart and hastily bound back together. He had all the knowledge that would benefit a warrior in his prime, executable only by the body of a frail merchant.

            He had expected to be furious at this revelation, and feared that perhaps acceptance would break his spirit. Instead, he found only the determination to adapt. There was something enticing about the opportunity to develop a style all his own, one catered to a slower, frailer body.

            Success did not come quickly. He experimented with techniques both improvised and bastardized, most combinations of which only yielded further bruising.

            The bout finally ended when, upon trying a method which minimized his own movements and turned the opponent’s momentum and energy against them, Ragarin stepped inside his opponents guard and delivered a deep cut to the priest’s flank. Blood arced from the wound, splattering a long trail of crimson across the tiled floor.

            The priest put a stymying hand against the laceration and gave a shallow nod, signaling the duel had ended. Ragarin stepped from the platform, allowing a swarm of acolytes to treat his opponent’s wounds. When they had finished, the priest would interpret his own blood splatter, seeking the signs and patterns to make clear Grimnir’s will.

            It was during this process that the aspirant squire returned to Ragarin, darting across the temple and drawing several grunts of annoyance at his lack of ceremony. He paused briefly to catch his breath; evidently he had run from Daal’s pavilion.

            “My apologies, Mighty Hror,” he said between ragged breaths, apparently unfazed by Ragarin’s state of undress. “Honored Daal said I was too young, and lacked both due respect and honest nature.”

             Ragarin smiled beneath his black helm. That the boy had sprinted to deliver news of his own failure proved the assertion of dishonesty ludicrous, and Daal finding him unpleasant was a strong argument in favor of the boy’s character.

            “What is your name?” Ragarin asked. He attempted an imperious presence even stripped and beaten as he was.

            “Okri, Mighty Hror. I have not yet earned a title,” despite his apparent strain, Okri betrayed no self-pity in the wake of his perceived failure.

            “Well, congratulations Okri. You have passed my test, and proved yourself worthy to be my squire.”

            Ragarin’s smile spread wider as Okri’s air of determination evaporated into confused incredulity. Ragarin allowed a few moments for the boy to collect himself, which he took full advantage of to resume his straight-backed attention.

            “I-it is an honor, Mighty Hror! I swear on my ancestors, I will never fail you!”

            “See that you don’t,” Ragarin responded, returning to his usual demeanor. “I will not have need of you today. Say your goodbyes and enjoy the company of friends and family; after tonight you will be travelling at my side. Return to where you found Daal tomorrow morning before breakfast, and don’t be late.”

            Okri gave a bow, not entirely capable of masking his excitement, and exited the temple almost as swiftly as he had entered. When he was gone, Ragarin turned back to the priest. Linen bandages clothed his torso from armpit to navel, a red bloom tainting the cloth where the cut still wept. He was crouched low to the floor, pouring over his own blackening blood.

            Ragarin joined the squatting priest in regarding the dried vitae, sand ground from the rough tiling rendering the blood a sticky vandalism of the otherwise empty floor space. The pattern, if even there was one, seemed meaningless to Ragarin, another arc of gore to join the thousands in his long years of battle. It held no more meaning now than it did then; it was the mark of a defeated enemy, nothing more.

            After several minutes of pregnant silence, Grimnir’s bronze aspect turned to regard Ragarin, the sculpted snarl betraying nothing of what the greybeard had seen. “The blood speaks of your future,” he said without emotion. “You do not have one.”

 

**Rickard**

**2335**

Breakfast was a fine display of sausages, black bacon, and generously buttered breads and eggs. It was often joked that Ellyn’s mother, the Lady Martin, had finer cooks in her kitchen than that of the King himself, a rumor Rickard had difficulty arguing against.

            Othella Martin was a plump woman, though still attractive in her own way, with little sag and nary a wrinkle in her perhaps overly curvaceous figure. Rickard couldn’t help but wonder how much of that extra weight his betrothed might inherit, though Othella had certainly aged gracefully for a woman of thirty-eight.

            At present, however, there was not a complaint to be had about Ellyn. Something about her mildly tanned skin and tangled charcoal hair made her ideal figure all the more enticing to Rickard, a sort of commoner’s wildness that carried into her mannerisms. He had inherited little from his father, but both shared a disdain for useless court etiquette. Perhaps that same disdain was the source of his infatuation with the less regal.

            Only when the clatter of cutlery stopped and the two women began to stare did he realize he had halted his eating, and whatever conversation he was leading, to make such an observation.

            “Apologies, I’ve forgotten where I was going. What was I...?”

            Ellyn and her mother exchanged a look, both sharing a conspiratorial smile.

            “You were just telling us how the war effort was going, dear,” Othella said, raising a glass of steaming tea to her lips. “That these Sons of Hror are becoming terribly inconvenient.”

            Rickard raised an eyebrow at that. “Really? I don’t believe I would have brought up such occurrences with the gentler sex. More than that, these dwarves use tactics I would refrain from speaking even to the local patriarchs.”

            “Please, dear,” Othella retorted. “Ever since my gallant Manchester died, I have had to run this household, and will hold that burden until ours are merged by your union.”

            ‘Gallant Manchester,’ Othella’s late husband, had been a painter in life, and an unfortunately daring one. In an effort to capture Hannesberg’s unique skyline, he had scaled the city gates under cover of darkness, up the great stone towers home to the night watchmen. Upon reaching the pinnacle, an unexpected greeting by one such guard sent him right over the hay-cart parked below and onto the nearby manor’s black-iron fence.

            “Well enough,” Rickard conceded, “though I did warn you. I’m sure everyone has heard by now of what happened to Mountaingate, sacked by dwarves and buildings torched. Somewhat fewer know that its residents were slaughtered as well, killed by hammer and blade whether guardsman or farmer. As of yet there are only ten survivors, two of which cannot or will not speak of the incident.”

            He took a sip of his tea, noting Ellyn’s distress and Othella’s unyielding attention.

_Her husband did not shield her from the world. Or perhaps she unshielded herself._

            He placed the cup back on its porcelain plate with a soft clink. “Those who do speak all describe dwarves in mail and white surcoats, led by a warrior in midnight plate. They spoke no Reikspiel, but the academics have translated their scrawlings as ‘Tremble at Hror the Immortal, for we are his children.’ The men have taken to calling them the ‘Sons of Hror.’”

            Ellyn’s interest returned, apparently stolen from her mother’s now bored countenance. Lady Othella waved a bejeweled hand in dismissal.

            “Please, Rickard,” she began. Rickard felt his jaw tighten at the lack of honorific, something she refused to remedy even after several scoldings. “These are things the stable boys gossip about in their cups, do you expect the nobility do not know that already?”

            “Then I assume you already know about their habit of removing a victim’s genitals and shoving them down their throats,” Rickard said flatly, determined to catch the matriarch off-guard and put a dent in that infuriating pomposity. He skewered a fresh sausage with his fork and gave it a single bite, for emphasis. His companions both paled.

            When Ellyn stood, lips pursed, he knew the slap was coming. He did nothing to avoid it as she reddened his cheek. He was sorely tempted to say it was much less sensual in the dining room than the bedroom.

            “Oh come dear,” Othella said as her daughter resumed her seat, already recovered from her distress. “If you’re going to spend your life with this one you must learn to take a joke.”

 

**Ragarin**

**2318**

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

            Mountainhearth’s captain of guards stared at Ragarin with enough disdain to curdle milk. Captain Hazkal Firebeard’s namesake was an apt one, whiskers the color of sunset curled upwards into points that rendered his jaw ablaze with hair. He was reputed to be one of the finest warriors outside the _Kol_ , though possessing an unhealthy disrespect for the wisdom of his elders. The latter point did not, evidently, interfere with his skill at arms or city defense.

“What jape could be worth spitting on the memory of your master? That you live at all is an insult to your legacy.” His voice had an arrogance to it that set Ragarin immediately on edge. “You never struck me as the sort to make a mockery of yourself, Iron-Eye.”

            When Ragarin had received invitation to meet with Grobi Rik, delivered by a prodigiously sweaty courier at Mountainhearth’s immense outer gates, he had accepted in the hopes it would grant him the necessary proximity to bash Grobi’s face in. The brass doors of the fortress-city were close to impenetrable, and the risk was more than worth moving his forces past the threshold, even if it landed him in a dusty oubliette. Daal had objected of course, giving far greater credence to the latter possibility. Ragarin had been rather specific about where he could shove such advice. Defying both expectations, he instead found himself brought to the barracks, a vast if visually uninteresting building jutting from the western wall.

They stood across from each other in Hazkal’s office, two city guards and Okri attending their respective masters. Save the desk, carpet, and a few portraits of his predecessors, the captain of the guard kept his workspace as empty as possible. Papers were stacked neatly, dip pens rested in their appropriate drawers, and a complete absence of dust implied daily cleaning. 

            “I should give you the hammer for what you’ve done,” Hazkal finished. He had been speaking for a while, though Ragarin had placed more importance on his surroundings than Hazkal’s lecture. He made note of the approximate age of the attendant guards, as well as the weapons they fought with. This could turn violent very easily, and Ragarin would never again win such a battle with martial skill alone.

            “But?” Ragarin asked, deciding he would already be dead if Hazkal desired it.

            The captain grimaced. “But many things have changed since your excursion to Urbaz, Iron-Eye. The king plans to integrate us further into man’s empire, to an open share of forces and supplies. I’m to hand over my men to some puffed-up Imperial who will never set foot on this island, and to allow their pick of humans, sorcerers, racketeers, and worse, elves, through our city gates.”

            Ragarin could barely stifle a laugh. Now they saw what he had feared for so many years.

            “I have difficulty believing the council of elders would approve,” he responded after quickly regaining his stoicism. The council surrounding Grobi may have been feeble and disconnected from the needs of their people, but a single word of theirs held wisdom equal to a hundred of Daal’s ramblings.

            Hazkal grunted in derision. “Only you, Dreng, would think those greybeards hold any real power. Aye, Grobi’s father heeded them well, as does any good king. I doubt you returned here because you believed Grobi to be a good king.”

            Ragarin grinned under his helmet, ignoring the riposte. “You want my help, don’t you? You want these people I’ve brought with me. You want to kill the bastard as much as I do.”

            “Don’t sound so triumphant, Iron-Eye. I don’t need you to kill him; that has been arranged already. His actions are more than grounds for disgrace, more than enough to challenge him for his rule in combat. He won’t win; this I assure you. No, what I need is support. The commoners don’t know of his incompetence as we do, and the assurances of his killer would only seem the lies of a usurper. But the word of Hror; _that_ they would follow.”

            The offer was tempting. He could not dethrone Grobi on his own, Mountainhearth was nearly impossible to penetrate by any means beyond invitation. With the assistance of the guard it would become almost easy to see the king dead. Yet he knew that, while Grobi Rik was grossly unworthy of the throne, he was not totally incompetent. Even the craven could fortify power. He had used honor and ignorance to force the _Kol_ to their deaths, that alone was enough to prove his skill at subterfuge. Ragarin had little doubt the king made use of spies, and if that was the case, he likely already mistrusted his captain of guards. Ragarin wondered if Hazkal would live long enough to see his challenge through.

            More than that, he bristled at being mere party to this assassination rather than its prosecutor. What little honor he had left hinged upon slaying Grobi Rik with his own hands, the benefits to his people were all but secondary. Vengeance was what he craved, righteous vengeance paid in blood.

            Dreng straightened suddenly, prompting the surrounding guards to draw their swords in near unison. “I have travelled the length of this island, and back from death to kill Grobi Rik. I am more than willing to accept your blades, but I will be the one to slay our false king. You shall have no help otherwise.”

            Ragarin had expected further derision, or perhaps some furious outburst from the captain of guards. Instead his face became very calm, his pursed lips the only evidence of suppressed irritation.

            “Your black hair is already running to grey, Iron-Eye. Perhaps you should begin honing your wisdom, rather than acting with the idiot fervor of some stubbled youth. Your artisan plate cannot hide that limp. Rik is craven, aye, but he is young, and looking at you now that may well be enough. No, I will not take unnecessary risks, especially not to please the vanity of a tired old fool.”

            “Then I challenge you, Hazkal Firebeard, Captain of Guards!” Ragarin roared, spittle flying from his mouth in sudden fury. He raised an armored finger accusingly at the warrior opposite. “For I too doubt the worth of my opposite!”

            Again, the captain’s response was muted. He shook his head in disappointment. “I did not wish to kill you, Iron-Eye. You have done much for our people. Perhaps a proper death will return some of the honor you once held.”

…

Hazkal’s weapons of choice were a finely sculpted war axe and equally adeptly crafted shield. Likely sculpted by the warrior who bore them, both items displayed an ornate brutality. To wear one’s unique crafting talents into battle was a pride Ragarin would never know again.

            The captain of guards was young and agile, such as a dwarf could be. When the bout commenced, Ragarin was immediately on the back foot. Firebeard attacked with a fervor that would have given Ragarin challenge in his prime, and his ruined form felt woefully inadequate by comparison

             Ragarin’s thoughts were interrupted by an axe blow to the side of his head, the weapon angled sideways into a bludgeon. Ragarin planted his feet; the temple’s lesson swallowed in the face of proving his fortitude, and swung a hasty riposte toward Hazkal’s weapon arm. The blow skidded uselessly across the ornate shield, the slab of metal near as tall as its wielder. Hazkal manipulated the weight seemingly without effort.

            The attendant guards watched impassively as the violence bloomed before them, the cacophony of steel on steel filling the air with ear-splitting overture. Ragarin felt blow after blow hammer his armored form, the struggle to keep ruined joints firm growing more difficult with each passing moment.

            A shield-charge sent Ragarin sprawling across the smooth floor, his clumsy efforts to rise quickly interrupted by a hail of strikes, the weapon’s speed subsumed by lethal power. A shriek of metal tore through the barracks as the axe cleaved into his backplate, the smile cutting deep into already ruined flesh.

            Ragarin roared as he jerked backwards, attempting to wrench the weapon free of his opponent’s grip. The blade slid easily from its sheath of flesh and metal, painting a crimson trail of gore over his left pauldron. A desperate counterattack was quashed as the base of Hazkal’s shield smashed into his mailed wrist, the freshly-healed muscles in his hand seized and _Uzkul_ fell clattering to the floor. Another blow dented his chest plate, the force toppling him onto his back. He rolled to his side, limbs screaming in protest as a blow that would have collapsed his plackard and severed his beard cleaved into the empty floor.

            Ragarin leapt clumsily at the younger warrior as he struggled to free the weapon. Another loud clang filled the office as Hazkal’s shield met Ragarin’s faceplate, the desperate attack succeeding only in separating Hazkal from his primary weapon.

            The captain of guards seized the shield with both hands, and pounded the heel into Ragarin’s gorget. Repeated strikes slowly crumpled the black steel into a lethal noose. Ragarin’s lungs screamed for air as his own armor worked to suffocate him. Hazkal raised his shield fractionally higher, his intended coup de grace giving Ragarin precious time to raise arresting hands across the meteoric edge, now blunted by repeated impacts. He felt the bones of his hands shatter as he grabbed the slab of steel, a clipped grunt of pain snuffed out as Hazkal leaned heavy into the makeshift guillotine. Weakened limbs could only slow the tremulous descent.

            “Why won’t you die?” Hazkal’s speech was muffled by his heavy faceplate, an angular but ornate bronze visage which contrasted Ragarin’s utilitarian black steel. His voice was thick with frustrated effort.

            Only a dry gasp escaped Ragarin’s lips in response as the shield drew closer, his hands white-hot with agony, his muscles screaming with effort. He felt the slightest ease in pressure as Hazkal prepared to redouble his weight.

Ragarin pushed toward his naval, the heavy wedge sliding from mutilated hands. It fell hard on his curved plackard, a bell’s toll vibrating the humid air. The edge slid to the fauld at his waist, and Hazkal pitched forward as the shield’s momentum ripped him from unsteady feet.

            With defiant might, Ragarin forced his head upward and slammed the sharp edge of his helm into Hazkal’s immaculate faceplate. The bronze helmet buckled and split, knifing into the flesh beneath. The sudden pain saw Hazkal scrambling for purchase, but his gauntleted hands slid uselessly off Ragarin’s arcing plate. The last of the _Kol_ pushed up hard with his right leg, sending both combatants into a desperate roll. Ragarin arrested himself atop the prone Hazkal.

            “Because my enemies still breathe,” Ragarin wheezed.

            He hooked useless fingers beneath the chin of the scarred faceplate, ripping the helm free before smashing the opposite gauntlet into Hazkal’s bulbous nose. The crunch was beyond satisfying. Over and over he hammered Hazkal’s face, beating the once handsome features into a soft and bloody ruin. Proud against Ragarin’s assault was the deep gash cleaved into the warrior’s face, a long scar running from lip to brow.

            He halted the onslaught before the killing blow, his trembling arm rendered incarnadine to the elbow. Blood and teeth bubbled from Hazkal’s ruined mouth. He gave an unintelligible gurgle, which Ragarin assumed to be a call to finish the bloody work.

            Ragarin stood unsteadily, his breath tortured through a still constricted throat. The guards were aghast, apparently indoctrinated into a belief of Hazkal’s invincibility.

            “No,” Ragarin replied. “No, much as it rankles to admit it, I need you. I need your men. You will live to serve. Under me will you return this city to glory.”

            The response was choked, but this time Ragarin found words amidst the wet sputtering. “You… leave… me… disgraced.”

            “Do not speak to me of disgrace,” Ragarin said, rounding on his defeated foe. “You suffer little more than wounded pride, while I have abandoned my very name. Abandoned are my rights to deed and glory, such is the price of imitating Hror’s mere _shadow_. There is no triumph left for me, no songs to be sung for Ragarin Dreng. You have suffered a defeat, yes, but your tapestry of deeds can grow still.”

            Ragarin winced as he pushed mangled fingers beneath his own helm, clumsily lifting it clear of his scalp. The heavy clang of steel impacting the floor below punctuated the universal look of shock and horror in his company. It was the second toll of his funerary bell, a metaphor Ragarin found supremely apt. His charcoal hair, once long and braided, had been shorn away. The heavy mane had been replaced with a single strip of waxed orange, a ray of failing sunlight compared to Hazkal’s blood-specked inferno.

            “The sole title upon my epitaph shall be Kingslayer.”

…

            The Slayer’s Oath, the purest worship of Grimnir, was the final, terminal path for those disgraced. Relinquishing lands, titles, and even one’s name and ancestors, a dwarf suffering irreparable dishonor could become a slayer, a warrior oath-bound to die in glorious battle against a worthy foe. Marked by a vibrant orange crest, slayers would seek all manner of trolls, giants, and even daemons to cleanse their soul in blood.

            It was with no uncertain terms that the priest bade him choose between the slayer’s path, and damnation.

            “You are a dead man walking, though what you have done to make yourself so, I am unaware.” The priest’s previously dispassionate tone had adopted a slight edge of sympathy, much to Ragarin’s disquiet. “It falls to you what manner of dead man you choose to be.”

            The priest let the judgment hang in the air as Ragarin absorbed what he was hearing.

            “Denying your fate will not defeat it, you will only succeed in leading an empty, purposeless existence, doomed to fail in all things,” he continued. “But wear the crest, and death becomes its own kind of life.”

            Ragarin accepted his judgment with surprising ease; he was already living solely for the kill. While others sought to fell rare beasts and monsters, Ragarin would content himself with the slaughter of kings and barbarians.

 

**Hjolmar**

**2318**

“Valka will not challenge me directly,” Hjolmar responded with alacrity, after Joric had relayed his fears. “She would sooner sweep me under the bearskins than take my head.”

He looked down at freshly balmed hands, uncurling his fingers in various sequences. His split flesh was raw, but inaction would yield only a more acute lack of function.

            His gaze returned to Joric. “We simply have to act before she kills the little rat. Thankfully I’ve already parsed that action, and all I need is for you to spread word of my recovery. Have the Ghosts gather by that ugly stone well in city center, I will address them there.”

            Joric eyed him suspiciously. “Wouldn’t it be better to tell them yourselves? Having me do it doesn’t exactly scream strength.”

            Hjolmar could feel his face tightening in irritation. Every moment he wasted explaining his plan shortened the already slim window of action. He doubted Joric would understand his need to appease The Blood God. He would not fall to that madness again.

            He felt the shallow anger staining his thoughts, and masked it with a smile. “Trust me Joric. I know what I’m doing.”

            Joric seemed unsure of how to proceed, stalling for a moment before nodding and exiting the hut.

            “That same look again.” The thoughts passed through his lips quietly, but tension racked the intonation. His hands tightened into claws that shook with an effort to remain calm. “I’m still myself. I’m Hjol. They know I’m smarter than they are, they know I’m me. So why do they doubt?”

            He knew, of course. If their positions had been reversed, Hjolmar would be wary of Joric’s faculties as well. Nonetheless, there was no room half measures. This piecemeal trust arrested what needed to be succinct.

            He was sweating, the sensation of burning blood moving from literal to metaphorical. This temper was unfamiliar, and he fought to keep it buried. Was this something like the battle rages he could never achieve? His envy of those who could quickly gave way to revulsion as his own rage threatened murderous egress.

            “I am not a slave to my emotions,” he uttered the words quietly, but in repetition. Before long he was able to relax, but the effort had left him close to exhaustion. “They will learn. Once they see what I am building, they will trust in me again.”

…

The town well sat opposite a disused executioner’s block. The well-worn piece of stone was crowned with several thin indents, the only legacy of those who had died there. Hjolmar assumed the adjacency was to remind the water-gathering peasantry, which was doubtlessly all of them, of justice’s more violent means. Hjolmar admired it instead for the foot of height it lent him before a crowd.

            There was some trepidation on his march to the chopping block, though the skald within him admired the aptness of such a location. It was on this small stage that Hjolmar would be judged by his people, an unfavorable verdict the herald of inevitable death. Whether his head would be the first thing parted from his body remained to be seen.

            He was tempted to alter his behavior as he ascended the shallow steps, but knew that any mummery of frailty in his present condition would appear more than comical. The obvious weakness rankled, and the rare privilege of finding a use for such infirmity did little to salve his disintegrating pride.

            “Brothers,” he began, assuming the chosen spot. His voice was taught and carried poorly. Some in the crowd visibly strained to listen, while others muttered to each other in disinterest. Joric seemed openly concerned, while Valka radiated an impatient skepticism. Sven seemed genuinely pleased at his reemergence. Hjolmar could almost laugh at the irony.

            “You do me great honor in waiting for my return, and that wait is at an end. To the south lies the city Hannesberg, and while they lack a challenge so hardy as the dwarves, it is an Imperial city ripe with plunder: stores of weapons, galley-loads of the finest meats, and with any luck some liquor more palatable than this squat swill we’ve been forced to content ourselves with.”

            A few pockets of laughter broke from the crowd, though the majority remained stoic. Hjolmar could all but see their unwarranted lack of faith swelling, feeding off his wasted form. He felt his temper kindle anew, indignation that they had so quickly forgotten his deeds. He had killed a daemon with his bare hands, yet that now seemed to count for little and less. A deed worthy of ballads had been forgotten in fifteen days.

            “But I can hardly take all glory for myself,” he said, teeth bared reflexively, his struggle to appear jovial stretching the smile into something grotesque. “So I name Sven war leader for this raid. He has done well in my stead, and thus I reward him with this bounty.”

            He looked to Sven, pleased to see the near-intractable composure drop from his face like a chained man thrown into the sea. A mixture of satisfaction and confusion played across his features in a combination that made him look as daft as Hjolmar knew he was. Joric, wide-eyed and mouthing expletives, was slowly turning the color of snow. Valka looked on the verge of combustion, her jaw clenched so tightly that Hjolmar wondered if her teeth would shatter.

            “Do you accept this honor, Sven?” He asked plainly, gesturing down to the stout warrior, his anger suffocated beneath a tide of satisfaction.

            Hjolmar wondered if his opponent would demand a speech of his own, but instead he simply nodded. He craned his head so that those at his back could hear the acceptance. “I do,” he said simply, his gravelly voice conveying twice the power of Hjolmar’s disused windpipe.

            “Good. You may hand pick from volunteers, but leave some of our number for the herding slaves and the transit of wealth already gained. Our new camp will be in the city itself. No doubt the lowlanders here will be eager to meet so many of their kin.”

            Sven gave a final look to the dais before beginning his recruitment, most of the gathered flocking to his side in haste, pledging their swords and demanding fresh bloodshed. He could barely contain his glee at the colossal misstep he doubtlessly thought Hjolmar was making. The arrogant stupidity made Hjolmar want to bash his head into the barren floor he stood upon, splattering his useless brain into an ugly pink paste.

_Of course I’m not that stupid, you pathetic dwarf of a man. Kel was easy to predict, but had a hundredfold the sense you possess._

…

“Are you truly that stupid?” Valka all but screamed as she stormed into the cramped building, ignoring Joric as she pounded across the floor to stand in uncomfortable proximity. Hjolmar breathed a quiet sigh of relief that she was not carrying Sven’s severed head in one of her trembling fists. “That crown has rotted your brain!”

            It was Joric who responded first. “I think he was about to explain why he did what he did, right Hjol?” he asked helpfully, though still in that same annoying tone of disquiet. “I’m eager to hear as well.”

            Hjolmar adjusted himself so he could address them both. “You told me yourselves Sven could not be trusted, that he had won several to his metaphorical banner. Mere weeks after I proved my mettle, in a deed matched by few in even the great ballads, they turned on me out of little more than impatience. I need to separate those who can be trusted from those who can’t, and I’ve no doubt Sven will prove a more reliable sorter than even I. He’ll leave those who aren’t ready to suck his cock behind with us. After he beats himself bloody on a settlement that, from what I’ve read, is more than large enough to repel him, we will open their throats on that very field of battle.”

            Hjolmar decided to omit his desire to turn this slaughter into a sacrifice for The Blood God. The purging of Sven and his sympathizers was simply in convenient alignment.

            When it was clear he had finished talking, Valka burst into a raucous laughter that was utterly lacking in mirth. “You’ve gone mad, Hjolmar. _This_ is your plan, to murder most of our own warriors? You walked your half-dead ass onto that stage to trick your warband into hating you?”-

            “If they-“ Hjolmar began, but Valka leaned in until her bullish nose was mere inches from his own.

            “Joric and I bent over backwards for two weeks to keep you in charge while you danced around like a fucking child, and you pay us your debt with a scheme to kill them all?” Her crooked teeth were bared into a snarl as she spoke, her upper lip twitching with barely contained fury. He crinkled his nose as a waft of salted fish vented from her mouth.

            “Don’t worry” he responded calmly, raising his hands in submission. “We’ll make sure your bedmate marches with us.”

            Any further words Hjolmar had planned were interrupted by two calloused hands wrapping around his throat. He found himself hoisted into the air, a brief sense of weightlessness filling his limbs before he was slammed painfully into the wall.

            Hjolmar’s calm burned away like ignited fat from a spit, images of the burning fall flooding his mind. Where once his fear of death followed incidentally from the risk of glory unachieved, the Hel waiting beyond now kindled in him a horrified frenzy. He could hear his own blood, a riptide of life-giving fluid coursing through overworked veins, screaming with the threat to his person. The iron spikes that held his crown in place began to bleed, thick streams running over his face, blinding eyes and suffocating nostrils.

He kicked madly, emaciated legs deflecting uselessly off of Valka’s muscular trunk. He reached for the dagger in his boot, but his hand met only the smooth skin of naked calf. His darting eyes briefly found the now oversized footwear, the pliant leather tossed free of his bony leg.

            Suddenly, she let go, allowing Hjolmar to land painfully on the wooden stool he had occupied moments before. He felt what little air still occupied his lungs punched out of him as he landed on the sturdy furniture. Wheezing, slick with sweat, Hjolmar crawled feebly to his discarded boot, desperate to defend himself.

            _Kill her_ , he thought, the words coming unbidden into his mind. _Slit her throat, you’re faster than her. **Her sentiment will make her weak**._ **_Her skull is a worthy prize_**. He wanted to listen to the voice; it seemed to Hjolmar that he had judged poorly. Even among his closest allies, there was only one he could trust.

Hjolmar paused. He had counted on her for the battle ahead, and if she could at least be relied upon to kill his enemies, then she was too valuable to lose. He stilled, and waited, ready to leap the remaining distance at the first sign of her continued aggression. She said something he couldn’t hear, his blood still running loud in his ears. When no further violence materialized, he allowed himself to relax.

            When the desperate anger had finally abated, he wiped the blood from his eyes, already sticky with clotting. Valka had gone, and Joric again sat where they had begun the brief exchange, melancholy apparent on his face.

            “So, will she still help us?” Hjolmar asked breathlessly.

 

**Joric**

**2318**

For a few moments, those it took Joric to rise from his chair, Valka seemed lost to the battle-rage. Teeth bared, eyes wide in animal fury, it actually appeared as though she would snap Hjolmar’s neck. As fresh blood began to pool between her fingers her eyes refocused, and Hjolmar was quickly deposited back-first onto his wooden stool.

She turned to Joric, eyes wide and imploring, mouth opening and closing as she tried to form words.

“I wanted to keep him safe, Joric. You should have talked him down.” Her voice was somber as she spoke, thick with a weakness normally absent from her tone. Hjolmar didn’t respond, gasping as he shivered on hands and knees, the fingers of his right hand working in what Joric assumed to be anger.

            He wanted to retort, to defend himself for supporting his friend, to chastise her for acting in such sudden wrath when words would have sufficed. Instead, he appealed to her cooperation. “Valka, you know we need you for this.”

            A brief silence followed before she suddenly left the hut without reply, her gaze planted firmly on the floor in front of her.

            “So, will she still help us?”

            “I think so,” Joric responded, not looking away from the empty doorframe. He did his best to keep his voice neutral. He wanted to scream at the both of them, somehow illuminate how petty they were being, how uncharacteristically short their tempers had run. Instead he sought to avoid alienating himself from either of them, and that required less accusatory remarks. “You know her only loyalty is to us, yes?”

            Hjolmar gave a noncommittal grunt in affirmation. “You mentioned before Sven and his cronies enjoyed tormenting the slaves. I hope you didn’t take much part in that.” His voice was calm again, as if the entire exchange had not happened.

            Despite himself, Joric gave a quick laugh at the comment. “We didn’t have the time, even if we’d wanted to. Not that Valka would anyway; some quivering lowlander doesn’t offer much challenge.”

            “Good, let’s go pay them a visit.”

…

The lowlanders absconded for the voyage south had dwindled to just over half their original number, those left now squatting in a shallow fighting pit that, like the rest of the dwarven architecture, was exceptional flat, sturdy, and without flourish. Joric had neither the time nor the desire to visit the pen during his leadership, though seeing it now he supposed a mix of dirt, feces and blood qualified as a kind of decoration.

            The human cattle reeked like animals. Huddled together in small groups, their heads hung low to affect nondistinct submission. When the two Norsca arrived, each lowlander shuffled into the nearest corner as if to distance themselves from anticipated punishment.

            Hjolmar arrested himself a nonthreatening distance from the wretches, and began to speak in their Reikspiel. Joric immediately questioned why he had even been brought along. Silence followed his pronouncement, which he then repeated several times before a bent-backed gray stepped forward. He fell to one knee halfway between Hjolmar and the fearful gatherings. Kneeling, a mocking insult in Norscan culture, nevertheless appeared to satisfy Hjolmar greatly.

            The resultant conversation lasted for several minutes. Having not a clue as to the meaning, Joric instead focused on the peripheral forms of huddled lowlanders. Their collective gaze slowly left muddied feet, curiosity overwhelming indoctrinated trepidation. When the exchange had ended, fractional hope seemed to emanate from that fearful despair.

            Hjolmar turned from the lowlanders, his expression all but dripping satisfaction. Before Joric could ask the subject of the exchange, Sven approached them in proud stride, fur cloak swaying dramatically as he moved.

            “I’ve selected the best men for the raid, Hjolmar. With them I will deliver a slaughter worthy of ballad! The lowlanders’ pitiful cries will echo in the halls of-“

“Do you need something, Sven?” Hjolmar interrupted.

The man appeared to momentarily deflate before adopting a knowing smirk, as if to imply some secret bond between the three of them. “What can you tell me about this Hannesberg?”

            “Apart from a tower the color of snow at its center, par the course for lowlander construction. They have no enemies, sparing the occasional brigand, and as such hold soft defenses. The tower is the prize, those outside should be little more than chaff.” Hjolmar spoke without the usual condescension, as if casually describing last night’s supper.

            “You have my thanks for this honor, Hjolmar. I will deliver this city to you in chains, and I will make their streets run red with gore. This island will soon tremble at our very names.”

            When he had gone, Joric spoke. “Well, he seemed oddly genuine today. I’d throw away my favorite axe to shut him up, though.”

            Hjolmar gave Joric a wry smile. “Yes, his mummery was almost convincing this time. Of course I had to return that lack of sincerity, in truth the city has walls and mounted warriors enough to smash his assault to pieces.”

            “And what will stop them from smashing our even smaller assault to pieces?” Joric asked, wary about the details of this plan. Hjolmar’s obtuse assurances had quickly become irritating.

            “If all goes as planned, the lowlanders will think we’ve come to rescue them. A vanguard of their own kind should go some way toward cementing that ruse.”

            Joric gaped at him. “You think the Imperials will welcome us with open arms? Look at us Hjol, how would they tell us apart from Sven’s lot? And you plan to befriend the bloody-“

            “Joric,” Hjolmar interrupted tersely. “Our gang of dead men now has a chance of achieving something greater than our pitiful birth tribe ever will. Through my precise planning have we conquered a town many times our population, laid low the greatest warriors they could throw at us. I defeated a man many times my infamy with one arm. I forced to light the Vitki’s treachery before killing a daemon with my bare hands. Must I truly explain to you the minutia of all my plans? I tell you what you need to know, so please, be the one person on this gods-forsaken island who does what they’re told without bombarding me with eight-hundred bloody questions!”

            Silence hung for what felt like hours.

            “You know Hjol, it’s shit like this that got you strangled earlier.”

 

**Rickard**

**2335**

The city of Hannesberg had always been what Rickard would describe as an "ambitious mess." Wooden scaffolds adorned every street and building, always constructing some fresh adornment or protuberance. It began with the outer walls, Rickard had heard, though it was an endeavor finished before his time. Two stories of sturdy brickwork ringed the city, none of the adjacent buildings boasting greater stature. From there the dwellings only grew, slowly ascending to three and the occasional four-story house or inn at city center. That was, at least, the goal. An “ambitious mess” indeed.

            The quality of living grew with the architectural stature, streets grew cleaner, mansions more ornate. With the occasional exception, the rich and powerful had flocked to the cusp Hannesberg's bone-white tower. It put Rickard in mind of a lighthouse, such as he knew them from paintings, though far greater in scale. The tower loomed imperiously over even those four-story ambitions, and it seemed a mystery to everyone how it remained upright at all. Nevertheless, Rickard felt nothing but security and strength bound to its mighty walls, and from the top one could see for leagues in every direction. Of Svarland’s rolling fields, there was no greater view.

           

            Rickard ‘s journey to the porcelain keep took him through the market, a press of smallfolk he usually valued but today only wished was absent. Cowled in a worn brown cloak, he attempted to distract himself with the surrounding gossip, occasionally admiring displayed wares to absorb a story in totality. At present, flecked with the occasional complaint of disappointing grain yields and the city's lack of quality brothels, was an almost suffocating unease. Its source was the progenitor of similar anxiety amongst the high court.

Hror. The name had become looming shadow, its penumbra stretching over rich and poor alike.

            "He's two times the size of a normal dwarf," spat one particularly emaciated man, apparently debating his equally thin acquaintances. "That's how they choose their king it is."

            "He's their king because he's immortal, dung-for-brains. His last lieutenant decapitated him while he slept, but no sooner had the poor sod been strangled, and those same hands were putting the head right back where it belonged," was the loud rebuttal from another.

            Rickard grimaced as he passed. This rumor of immortality distracted from their very real methods of war making. He would have to drill this toxic belief out of the garrisons when the chance arose.

            He absorbed twelve further accounts of Hror's mythical prowess in everything from battlefields to bedrooms by the time he reached city center. His gaze followed the immense spire of white toward azure heavens.

            Rickard grimaced, his apprehension utterly failing to abate during the journey. Fear's cold hand squeezed tight around his heart as he tried to recall what shortcoming his father might berate him for. Or, perhaps this would be the day he met the same end as his mother; a relapse of the fury which left her sunlight curls dripping crimson.

            Fantasies of returning to Ellyn followed, the two of them riding picturesque as some great stallion bore them forever away from Hannesberg forever. He imagined the two of them as peasants, squalid but happy, subsisting on stale bread and staler beer until they froze to death in some long distant winter. By Sigmar, did he love her.

            _"There are things more important than your own happiness."_

            He cursed under his breath. Of all his father’s gifts, those words were perhaps the only for which Rickard was grateful. The nominally banal words seemed the world’s secret truth when delivered in that hard, weary drawl.

            The guards bowed in questionable synchrony as he stepped through the outer gate and into the shadow of that bone-white keep.

…

The personal chambers of King Volkord of Svarland were far too large for the relatively minute furnishings within. A shelf of rotting tomes sat what seemed the length of jousting field from the hearth, around which were seated two high-backed chairs of bull leather, nothing but polished marble floor between them. Equally distant was a desk, a carpet upon which sat nothing but dust, and a bed for two which seemed more appropriate in scale, though was vastly more unnerving for its presence.

            On the walls hung no portraits but of the king’s wife and brother, the raven-haired man's warm smile at odds with the cold expression Queen Jane Volkord had often worn whenever Rickard toppled one of the flower pots. The brothers Volkord looked nothing alike, Hellman's midnight hair framed a smooth, wide face and small nose whereas Rickard's father was well known for fey proportions masked by all manner of scars and stubble, his once broken nose standing puffy and crooked.

            Rickard never understood why his sire had kept Hellman’s face looming so, the man was by all accounts a failure, the first dwarven uprising proving his leadership woefully inadequate in any martial crisis. As told frequently by preacher Sigmund, a spindly man with hungry eyes whom Rickard found more unnerving than even his father, it was only after the senior Volkord’s assassination that his younger brother salvaged the seemingly unwinnable war.

            “Sit.” His father’s deep voice was paradoxically overwhelming when so near a whisper. Rickard did his best to smother the nascent anxiety, and strode to the waiting chair with all the confidence he could muster.

            The Lord of Svarland sat in the chair opposite, his emerald gaze meeting Rickard’s own. Rickard was surprised to find the man’s usual intensity had vanished, replaced with a weariness that seemed anathema to the blunt authority of King Hjolmar Volkord.

            Wisps of blonde hung lazily about the king’s gaunt features, strands pulled between the iron teeth of his crown. The rusted abomination called to mind a daemon’s maw preparing to snap shut; it was beyond Rickard why he chose to wear it. A weathered book in dull leather casing sat on the adjacent table.

             When he spoke, his naturally commanding tone seemed oddly warped, a fractional vulnerability tainting his aggressive charisma. Rickard imagined a bear trying to convey sympathy with a roar.

            “We have much to discuss.”

 

**Ragarin**

**2318**

It seemed a lifetime distant that Ragarin Dreng had walked the inner keep. It remained as it had been, all towering pillars and magnificent trophies made pristine as only a dedicated force of servants could.

            “I hate this bloody hall,” said Hazkal, stalking at Ragarin’s left. He all but shouted over the clatter of armored boots in procession to the dining hall, an oversized force of guards to stymie any surprise heroics from the aristocracy. “Too reverent of past victories.”

            Ragarin raised an eyebrow beneath his helm. “Do you not respect the past, Captain Firebeard? It is our veneration of history that makes us greater than our enemies.”

            Hazkal’s gaze remained frontward; whether the avoidance indicated shame or indignation, Ragarin could not tell. “Aye, there is glory and wisdom in our history; but past victories against Ork warlords proclaim only the merits of our ancestors. _Present_ deeds define _us_. I did not fight in those wars. I never killed Winged Lord’s knife-ears, nor did I put Shagrath Murdertoof’s armies to the torch. I would never claim to hold pride over battles I didn’t fight.”

            Ragarin smiled, perhaps this Hazkal had a better head on his shoulders than he first thought; though now was not the time to make plain such approval.

“Will any of his personal guard stand against us?” Ragarin asked, now matching the forward gaze of his companion.

             “The Circle only protects a king who fights by their side. Appeal to that if they try to interfere.” Hazkal paused before speaking again. “This is not your place, Slayer.”

            Ragarin’s mood immediately soured. “I may be a dead dwarf walking, Captain, but I am still a dwarf. I will kill for my people, as is my right.”

            Hazkal’s silence was pregnant with frustration, but he said nothing.

            They halted before the immense bronze doors of the banquet room, each standing proud in their immaculately carved beauty. Ragarin placed a mailed palm against the great artifice, trying to pull some tranquility from the indifferent metal. One of the two on whom he had sworn vengeance waited beyond, a full half the fuel that kept his soul’s furnace ablaze. He could not antagonize himself; the nobility’s cooperation was required, at least until the crown was his. He would not be denied the justice he craved, but he had to make plain his righteous intent; this was not some upstart’s petty bid for sovereignty.

            He took a final, calming breath and pushed. The doors swung wide, revealing within a sprawl of decadence. Glistening meats and gilded chalices of heady liquors dotted the long banquet table, the guests spread along its length no less immaculately dressed.

            At the table’s head was Grobi Rik, dressed comfortably in a gilded robe and seated beside his rotund queen. He was as portly as Dreng had remembered him, wrapped in the same immaculate neatness he prized above all else. To the man’s credit, he was the first to notice the intrusion. While several nobles obliviously continued their winding conversations, Ragarin and his former king locked eyes across the room’s prodigious length. It was not long before the room fell silent. There was a muted clacking noise as Grobi Rik returned his goblet to the silken tablecloth.

            “Mighty Hror! It is good that yo-“

            “You tried to have me killed,” Ragarin said, advancing slowly into the room. The nearby guards made no move to stop him, though four warriors in crimson plate stepped off the far wall, obsidian smiling from raised axes. “I say you have no honor, my king. I served you in good faith and you sent me to die.”

            Silence descended once more, the gathered aristocracy unmoving as if a collection of ornate statues. “You’re not him,” was Grobi’s reply as he stood from his chair. “Guards, arrest this imposter, he dishonors a fallen hero with this farce.”

            Nobody moved. Even the Circle, their king now enclosed, remained frozen where they stood. Grobi’s eyes narrowed. “Hazkal,” he said, spite blossoming with the echoes now circulating the hall. “I knew you were insolent, but I never expected such treachery.”

            “I know of your plans to unify us with the Empire, Grobi Rik. One who sells his city to surface-dwellers is no king at all.”

            The silence was broken as the nobles broke into confused whispering, a hundred accusatory stares darting to and fro as if to find the truth, or falsehood, of these new assertions. Ragarin struggled to remained still; he could feel his jaw tightening, broken fingers aching as they fought against their splints to form angry fists.

            Grobi seemed unsure whether to retort with truth or falsehood. “The Empire holds the surface,” he began, attempting to evade the accusation. “And our own farms are yielding a smaller crop with every passing year. We need to expand, but not while greenskins still infest the depths. More so, the elves cannot be trusted to leave us be if they sense weakness. We need the Empire’s support, or we will die.”

            “We would not if you had fought them, if you had made them pay for this land in blood, if you had made them see and respect our strength!” Hazkal retorted. “You have sold us in half measures to an Empire that sees Mountainhearth as little more than another pile of gold to be taxed!”

            All at once, the gathered nobles erupted into a sea of furious arguments, a mix of angry defenses, retorts, and accusations that saw several fist-fights break out and much of the lavish spread scattered messily across the polished floor.

            “Enough!” Ragarin’s cold voice echoed across the vaulted ceiling. The nobles quieted as he took another step forward. He raised a gauntleted hand in challenge to his opposite. “Grobi Rik, you are a disgrace to your ancestors and unworthy of the crown you bare. I challenge you for the title of king!”

            Grobi’s mouth twisted into a sneer, rage pulling his face tight. “By what right? You are a pretender to the name Hror, some imposter done up in the armor of a corpse. Defiling our ancestors is an inexcusable insult! I have done nothing but what is best for my people!”

            All eyes were fixed on Ragarin. If he didn’t kill Grobi now, he would never see the inept king again; yet attacking him outside of ritual combat would only confirm the nobility’s worst fears. This required a measured response, but Ragarin had not crawled from death’s clutches with compromise. He would not bend before the object of his ire when all that separated them was the length of a dinner table.

            “Captain Firebeard,” He said in a voice tight with impatience. “Remove all armor but my helm. King Rik is right to be wary, for he wears only his fine robes. ”

            Hazkal gave him an incredulous look, but nevertheless ordered his men to begin unclasping the midnight plate that concealed Ragarin’s battered form.

            Grobi’s taut face twisted into a bemused grin. “What is this nonsense? A mockery…” His expression turned to surprise, then morbid amusement as the last bits of armor were peeled away. Ragarin stood clad in naught but britches and helm, splinted hands hanging beside a freshly-stitched torso. The flesh of his throat ran purple with trauma, his waist wrapped in bloodied bandages. Without the steel mold of his armor, he twisted into a lopsided hunch, his next steps forward wracked by a noticeable limp.

            “A crown on each our heads, otherwise unshielded, my king.” He watched amused as Grobi absorbed the full breadth of damage Ragarin had endured, the thoughts of actually defeating him growing visible across Rik’s fleshy countenance.

            “Very well,” Grobi Rik replied, a sadists’ grin baring teeth from below a thick mustache. “Guards, bring forth my crown and mace. We shall settle this here, with Mountainhearth’s noble lords in attendance.” He raised his arms, jeweled fingers beckoning. “Watch now as I prove the base nature of my enemy.”

…

The Crown of Mountainhearth was a helm of gromril, a wide barbute crested with ten short spikes, gold plating rendering it a masterwork in craftsmanship as well as practicality. The one-handed mace he bore was of similar make, a great slab of metal wielded with surprising ease in his thick, smooth fingers.

            Grobi approached theatrically, alerting Ragarin to the chainmail worn beneath his robe. No doubt he imagined the sound masked by the rattling mire of pendants about his bull-neck. Ragarin smiled beneath his helm.

            _Good, that will slow you down._

When the two combatants were six paces from each-other, Grobi’s Circle fell in wide around them, forming the boundaries of the battle. Their leader tapped his weapon against the floor, the only signal to begin. Ragarin had scarcely heard the clack of obsidian on stone before Grobi lunged, mace-head swinging with startling speed. He foreshadowed the move plainly, however, and Ragarin heaved to the right. The blow met empty air. No sooner had Grobi reversed the grip and swung again, earning similar results.

            The attacks were not without skill, but they reeked of rehearsal and inexperience. Grobi roared as he brought the mace low, preparing some murderous flourish. Ragarin stepped inside the weapon’s arc, letting his own clatter to the floor, and locked his assailant’s fleshy arm beneath one lacerated muscle. Ragarin took a moment to appreciate Grobi’s look of fearful incredulity before the headbutt, which pounded artisan gromril hard into the face beneath. While saved from any lacerations by the crown’s superlative engineering, Grobi’s stunned delirium allowed Ragarin to grab at his flowing robe, and yank him from uncertain footing.

            Grobi hit the ground with a clatter of jewelry, his mace rolling away into the feet of the Circle. Ragarin stepped onto his back, eliciting a veiled grunt from the fallen king.

`           “Give me my weapon you-” Grobi’s plea was cut short as Ragarin looped shattered hands into Grobi’s myriad livery and yanked upwards. He felt the bite of myriad pendants slicing into his taut flesh, and watched as Grobi struggled frantically to unloop the chains now crushing his windpipe. Ragarin gave a roar as he pulled tighter, choked protests ebbing to a gargling wheeze as Grobi’s fat face bulged and purpled, veins like violet maggots bulging beneath smooth flesh. He could hear the queen shrieking in horror.

            Unlike the various elves, _umgi,_ and halflings that populated the surface, dwarven bards sung no sad tales of empty revenge. To a child of the stone, there existed no higher calling, no more vaunted moral, than that of vengeance. To see a grudge repaid was more than simple duty. It was a way of life. Vengeance filled lungs and fuelled bellies. Vengeance spilled blood and laid empires low.

            Vengeance was Grimnir’s blade, and when it had finally bled the last drops of life from Grobi Rik’s shuddering corpse, its keening edge sung for fresh offering.

It sung for Hjolmar Vorkjal.

 

**Joric**

**2318**

Hjolmar had barely given Sven a half-day’s lead before his own retinue marched the long, semi-straight road to Hannesberg. While those fifty-one Ghosts of the North proudly bore the great spike of metal upon which flapped their new heraldry, a simple white circle atop a field of sea-green, Hjolmar worked in tandem with the slaves to construct a new banner. The wide flag of red haloed an emblazoned yellow hammer, a crude basterdization of those southern, Imperial standards.

            Hjolmar appeared to be waiting for the obvious question: why were they to bear the arch-enemy’s sigil? Joric elected to fulfill Hjolmar’s earlier request, and held his tongue. Hjolmar’s plans had worked, that was true, but this recent opacity had grown tiresome.

            Valka too was silent, much to Joric’s surprise, simply waiting quietly for the word to march. She seemed elsewhere, a solemn daydream that was at odds with the battle-scarred warrior’s fiery personality. After several long seconds of confused expectation dancing across Vidar’s face, the mustached warrior decided the question fell to him.

            “Why are we flying the enemy colors?” He asked flatly.

            “Because the enemy of our enemy is our tool,” Hjolmar responded, not looking up from the splayed piece of fabric. “And to kill an island of squats, we need an empire at our back.”

…

There were twenty-six Norsca following Hjolmar as began their march to Hannesberg, forty-seven slaves herded between them. They were each given daggers pulled from _Urbaz’_ s corpse piles, not for fear of what they may attempt with proper weapons, but because they had grown so emaciated Joric doubted they could carry anything heavier. Fear, and one poorly-conceived attempt at escape, had convinced the remaining forty-six to keep pace quietly.

            The slaves held their new banner low between them, hidden in case one of Sven’s retinue had lagged behind and viewed their treachery from across those rolling plains. Joric spread his arms wide as they walked, lowland gusts only barely arresting his sweat in the unfamiliar heat. Even so, the sun’s warmth had never felt so pleasant. Such was the effect of damp seclusion amid dead architecture.

            Hjolmar had projected a week’s worth of travel south to Hannesberg, and they had packed as lightly as was practical. They could not afford exhaustion in the battle to come. It was on the second day that Hjolmar detached from the head of the line to walk beside Joric. He wore an apologetic look.

            “I’m sorry, Jor. I’ve been an ass to you when you’ve done nothing but support my endeavors. This damned crown is making my temper shorter than my bastard father’s.”

            “You know,” Joric replied, intent on making his friend squirm a little before he could relax. “Sincere apologies usually don’t put the blame on others.”

            “Yes, sorry, you’re right I- I shouldn’t shift the blame. My emotion, my fault; I need to get the better of it-them.” Hjolmar’s voice had raised an octave, and there was something disturbingly frantic in the way he spoke.

            “Calm down Hjol, it’s fine,” he said, smacking him across the shoulders. “Though you might want to be more concerned about Valka, I think you hurt her big, ugly feelings.”

            Hjolmar grimaced, the sincerity in his face evaporating. “Yes, well, she hurt my neck when she hoisted me off the floor.”

            Joric let out an audible sigh, but let the subject drop.

            “So,” he began anew, “Why the slaves? They’ll do us little good.”

            Some amusement returned to Hjolmar’s stern visage. “In battle, no, but carrying the empire’s banner won’t be enough to convince the Hannesberg’s ruling class that we mean no harm. Seeing some of their own fight beside us will add credit to the ruse. They’ll fight hard, too. I promised freedom to any that bring me the head of one of Sven’s number”

            “And if any of them survive to give the lie to your words? Bloodied as they’ll be, Sven’s warriors may not kill _all_ of them.”

            After a moment’s pause, the laughter began in unison.

…

            When they crested the ridge overlooking the battlefield, such as it was, they had raised their crude Imperial banner high, crimson flashing vivid in the midday sun. Joric took the precious seconds before battle to survey the slain: twenty-two of Sven’s own number, Sven himself not among them, with many times that in Imperial soldiery. Armored knights lay broken in the now-churned earth, often a few feet from their slaughtered mounts, the snow-white destriers splotched with mud and gore. Several score infantry lay dead as well, while those still on their feet formed an aegis before the city gate.

            Hannesberg was atypical of Imperial architecture, a shallow ring of manor houses 6aand hovels worn upon an immense porcelain finger. Hannesberg tower stood immaculate against the grasslands, the sun’s rays reflecting painfully bright off its smooth shaft. The city walls were of thick stone, uneven but well-manned. A steady hail of arrows forced the Ghosts to fight with shields raised; indeed, each had become a round wooden quiver for several feathered shafts.

            Hjolmar turned to his own retinue, first speaking some encouragement in his home tongue, then to the gaggle of slaves in melodic Reikspiel. He gestured to the carnage below, and the lowlanders raised their daggers in near unison, a roar of festering hate sounding from toothless mouths. Joric echoed their cry. A tide of slaves before them, Hjolmar’s fresh retinue descended meteoric upon Sven’s eroded siege.

…

            Most of the slaves were dead by the time Joric had entered the skirmish proper, as had many of Hannesberg’s last, ragged defenders. Feathered shafts littered slave and Norsca both, though their steady deluge seemed to have abated. He heard Valka roar at his back, and knew any in toe would quickly find themselves occupied. Vaulting forward, he rolled beneath a sweeping battleaxe, a towering brute by the name of Krunt who immediately found larger quarry as Joric continued his forward sprint. He ducked a slavering man’s hammer before vaulting further and burying the smile of his axe in the back of another’s neck. He tore the weapon free, and in the same arc aimed for a bald, tattooed scalp.

            The haft of Sven’s battleax slid behind the biting edge of Joric’s own, locking the weapons haft-to-haft in a clash of heedless force. The brief pause flooded Joric’s ears with the music of war, the wet parting of flesh and the screams of the dying. A bloody gash running from cheek to right ear smiled grotesquely as Sven stared back at Joric, teeth bared in a feral snarl.

            “I should thank you, Joric, for leading so poorly. You made it easy to pull your men to my banner…” A twitch of Sven’s eyes telegraphed the blow, and Joric lunged sideways as a skull-faced war hammer scattered his boot prints into a shower of muddy debris. He turned, the towering man already unearthing his weapon for another strike.

            “… And for saving me the pretense of having you all killed!” Sven shouted over his shoulder as he ran, axe raised to strike some unseen target. Joric rolled sideways as another blow struck the loosening earth, splattering both combatants in a wet brown paste. The roll had put Joric further from his fallen weapon. The behemoth, Holgir if Joric recalled, moved to intercept any hope of retrieval. Two beast fangs framed the man’s face like tusks, and a beard matted with blood fell across his barrel chest. His eyes were like an animal’s, full of empty hatred.

            Joric rolled, his attempt to rise thwarted as he slipped on the mire of sludge at his feet. He was panicking, he knew, the frantic movements only burying him deeper in the churned mud.

            Instead of the quick death he had expected, he heard a grunt of pain and turned to see one of the surviving city guards ramming a long pike into Holgir’s flank. Blood spurted lazily from a deep but hardly debilitating wound. Joric used the opportunity to heave himself onto his feet, ducking beneath a swing which shattered the pike halfway up its haft before wresting his own weapon from the cloying dirt.

            A swing across the back of Holgir’s left leg was rewarded with a cry of pain, the man’s next swing aborted mid arc. Joric wrenched his weapon from the lacerated thigh and, with an overhead swing, split the warrior’s helm and skull into bloody halves. The corpse fell away, leaving Joric to stare at his savior. He met the man’s gaze, pleased to find defiance rather than fear. He nodded to the soldier before turning back to the bloody skirmish, and glimpsed Hjolmar frantically warding off Sven’s battleaxe.

            Joric charged, knowing his legs weren’t fast enough. Sven was near berserk, his two-handed weapon whipping about him as if he wielded a twig. Hjolmar’s deflected the strikes with increasingly desperate parries, failing to achieve any sort of advantage. Joric raised his axe skyward, roaring in defiance as he thrust the bladed head toward a blinding sun.

He threw.

 

**Hjolmar**

**2318**

            He had been a fool. So absorbed was he in his plans, so desperate was he to escape the pain in his temples and Hel in his sleep, that Hjolmar had yet to test his blade since recovery. Still recovering from starvation, his limbs were slow, and his strikes weak. While he had been pouring over ancient tomes, Sven had been honing his skills in a fighting pit, likely for this very occasion.

            Worse still, Hjolmar was afraid. He feared the black chains, he feared the fall, and he feared the laughter, his mocking funeral dirge. He felt powerless; Sven’s strikes were too strong, too fast, and panic was strangling the thoughts from his mind.

Sven was saying something, but his words were slurred and near unintelligible. Spittle flew from slack lips, and snide malevolence gleamed under his brow. He was on the very edge of blind battle-rage, but held on to his cognizance to deliver a final, dramatic tirade, something about this day being one long coming, and his name echoing in the annals of history.

            Sven was interrupted by a battleax suddenly sprouting from the side of his head. Blood spewed in thin streams from the gory wound, his bald pate cracking with the skull beneath. He stood, uncomprehending, trying to articulate some final thought.

            Joric tore the axe from his skull in a bloody spray, sending Sven’s twitching body sidelong into the mud.

            “Shut up and die,” said Joric.

            Hjolmar accepted a proffered hand, returning to unsteady feet. He whipped his arms to purge what grime he could from furs and armor. A quick scan of the battlefield revealed the fighting had ceased.

            "Thanks, Jor," he said with an almost painful smile. "I guess my pride has grown a little unearned, eh?"

            Joric's eyes widened in something like amazement. "By the Four, is that humility I hear in Hjolmar Vorkjal? Holgir must have killed me after all, that I may walk the halls of the Reveler. Never have I heard so sweet a song."

            A caustic retort was smothered by a sudden choir of brass horns, a melodious noise which reeked of stale practice and undeserved pomposity. The high, thin gates of Hannesberg parted just enough to expel four armored riders before shutting in similar fashion. Typical of lowland cavalry, they were clothed in steel and mounted on thin horses. One bore the flag of Hannesberg: a white tower framed in red, resting atop a similarly white backdrop. All bore the same symbol on the sheets of cloth swaying loosely over gleaming breastplates.

            The surviving infantrymen bunched around the riders like mongrels to the kennel master, order absent but for the fevered rush to proximity. As if in answer, the remaining Ghosts balled haphazardly behind Hjolmar, many clutching weapons in frenzied anticipation.

            The forward rider signaled a halt, arm raised, and looked down at the assembled Norsca. The afternoon sun haloed his polished frame, rendering the gilded steel near blinding. His face was masked by a perforated visor, and a vast plumage of red feathers sprouted from its summit.

            " _Greetings_ ," offered the knight, his baritone voice thick with unease.

            Hjolmar gave a shallow bob of the head and repeated the greeting. He saw the amassed lowlanders straighten in surprise.

            _"You speak our tongue?"_ the leader asked.

            _"Not good,"_ Hjolmar lied. There was no advantage in betraying his knowledge to these people. Even so, he lacked the patience of miming his intentions. If no translator waited in the city beyond, he would achieve little restricted to clumsy hand-gestures. _"But enough."_

The knight nodded once before pulling his horse around, the column following him back towards the city gates. " _Come. Alone."_

Hjolmar looked back at the survivors. Only eight had fallen, discounting the massacred slaves. Whoever led these lowlanders, he must have worn cowardice on his sleeve to be so cautious of nineteen bloodied warriors. Even so, Hjolmar would not ape weakness for the sake of easy diplomacy.

            _"I bring one,"_ he shouted back, with what he hoped was the appropriate amount of threatening barbarism. _"Others will stay."_

The emissary arrested his pace and turned back to Hjolmar, his helm concealing whatever thoughts danced beneath. One of the surviving infantrymen approached the cavalier sheepishly, bowing low before whispering something and gesturing in Hjolmar's direction. The knight nodded before straightening and resuming his march.

            _"Only two,"_ he shouted over his shoulder.

...

Beneath Hannesberg’s proud tower of ivory was a modest stone keep, the seat of nobility sequestered safely within. The lord's court was dressed in imitation of its heraldry, deep red carpets sat atop white marble floors, and crimson seat cushions adorned bleached wooden frames. Beneath his pinched face and coal hair, Lord Hellman Volkord looked almost a part of his throne; the cushions distorted into a velvet doublet, and his white breaches added another pair of legs to the four already present.

            To his left sat what Hjolmar assumed was the man’s bedmate, a waif of a woman even compared to the stick-thin limbs of the lowlanders surrounding her. The same red on white made up her attire, though puffed shoulders and padded skirts made for an altogether more elaborate countenance. Her silver tiara shone stark against golden curls pulled into a half-veil, bisecting a wide, emerald gaze.

            In contrast to the decoration of their lord, the gathered nobility seemed in competition to wear the most absurd clothing they could acquire. Pinks, blues and yellows clashed with gold bands and silver buttons, bulbous sleeves and dyed animal skins accentuated pale, thin limbs and powdered faces.

            Hjolmar struggled to keep his lips from curling in disgust. There was much he appreciated of lowland culture: intellectualism, ambitious engineering, and healthy respect of artistry. That those with weak bodies had built metal shells for battle was an innovation Hjolmar could only view with admiration. But this painted upper-class seemed to lack any pride in its appearance. Where hung the medals of honor? Where displayed the achievements of intellect? Had these overgrown children no trophies of victory to adorn their gaudy outfits? 

            The odd middle ground was the man to Volkord's right. Tall, thin limbed but fleshy of face, he wore a tight blue robe dotted with tiny crystals, which rendered his chest a crude imitation of the evening sky. In his right hand was clutched a scepter of undulant silver polished to a gaudy sheen. Crowning his shaven face was a tight-fitting lavender cap, crested by what looked like a haphazardly inverted Reikspiel “A”. He looked at Hjolmar through eyes the shade of a summer sky, within each an apparent curiosity and respect.

            _Vitki_ , Hjolmar thought. His stubbled jaw tensed. Such respect meant an understanding of Hjolmar’s abilities, perhaps even his faculties. This man was dangerous.

            _"Greet him,"_ Volkord said from velvet repose.

            "Lord Hellman Volkord, sovereign of Hannesberg, master of Svarland, and servant to his majesty, Emperor Magnus von Bildhofen, named the Pious, gives you his greeting." Hjolmar was taken aback by the man's flawless Norscan. Though he spoke a dialect Hjolmar was unused to, he knew it was endemic in the nomadic tribes of the eastern desolations.

            _Very dangerous_ _, then_.

            "I am Renuald of house Louis, attendant seer and court vitki to his lordship. I will translate on behalf of his highness, that we may avoid unfortunate confusion."

            Hjolmar smiled belligerently. "My thanks, Vitki. I am Jarl Hjolmar of clan Vorkjal, honored to serve beneath the sigil of High King Magnus. This is Joric, my second. It is a good thing to meet you."

            Renuald turned to his lord, face remaining a mask of cordiality _. "He is Hjolmar Vorkjal, my lord. One of the savage tribes Emperor Magnus hopes to mold into civility with time."_

The master of Hannesberg looked thoughtful. _"I was not aware such an initiative existed, Louis."_

_"It is usually unsuccessful, Lord. Clearly we have amongst us a rare stock."_

            _Oh, now that is interesting._ Hjolmar was aware of no such effort, and it was a unifying trait of lowlanders to hoard their culture and obliterate that of their rivals. Hjolmar, at least, had invented the claim, was the vitki doing the same? If so, Hjolmar wondered at his endgame.

_"Ask him why he's here."_

            "My Lord graciously asks why you have come, and extends his thanks for assisting in the vanquishing of his enemies."

            "These men killed were led by Sven Oathbreaker, his tribe an enemy to my people for nine generations." Hjolmar hoped inwardly that Joric wouldn’t betray the fabrication with a fit of laughter. "When we heard he sailed south to plunder High King Magnus' lands, we swore to claim his head for The Empire."

            _"He came to defend us from the other savages, Lord."_

Volkord smiled with ripe condescension _. "Tell the savage he has my thanks. Ask him to be our guest for a time; I'm sure the peasantry will enjoy something freakish to brighten their dull lives."_

"My Lord extends an invitation to live behind our walls until you are healed and healthy after this most violent ordeal. Please also accept my invitation to a private meeting tomorrow in my star-seeing chamber; I would love to learn more of your culture."

            Hjolmar gave a nod. "I accept your asking, Vitki."

            _But are you an ally, or competition?_ he added internally.

_"He accepts, my Lord."_

_"Wonderful. Now, his odor is ruining the carpets. Find them lodging in-city, perhaps some stable to match their stink. Tell them it is some great honor."_

"I will have the guards find suitable accommodation for you and your remaining warriors. Please, know the citizenry will not be used to individuals of your stature, be patient with them."

            "I admit my kind is not known for being gentle, Vitki, but I will do what I can."

 

**Joric**

**2318**

"What a farce."

            Hjolmar broke the silence as they stepped onto the keep’s well-manicured greenery. While certainly more lively, the overblown ornamentation that seemed to decorate everything from palanquin to piss-pot kindled a new appreciation for the more pragmatic architecture of distant _Urbaz_.

            "Hmm, what?" Joric asked.

            "The jarl. Rude because he thought we couldn't understand him."

            " _I_ couldn't understand him," Joric replied pointedly. "Honestly, I was barely listening to their vitki, or you for that matter. Empty promises and posturing, not exactly our way."

            "No," Hjolmar said, apparently surprised that Joric wasn't matching his gleeful condescension. "But necessary. Hannesberg is a city full of slaves in the making. We simply need to take the yolk."

            "Some of these men have honor, Hjol. One saved my life. He deserves a bloody end, not a life in chains."

            Hjolmar's mouth spread into a grin of derision. "Sympathy for lowlanders, Joric? Now I'm in the halls of the reveler. Or perhaps the Jarl of Change is simply playing tricks."

            In truth, it was only custom that gave Joric any thought for the man. He supposed the debt had already been settled, Holgir would have killed the frail soldier just as well had Joric not intervened. That he even had cause to repay a lowlander was more than noteworthy, however.

            The thoughts gave way to disappointment; Hjolmar had again chosen some lengthy deception over simply killing his enemies, though Joric quickly dismissed the apprehension as foolish. Sven had twice their number and he barely scratched the gates. Even if Hjolmar led them as one, he doubted any would have pierced the threshold, much less reach the tower's lacquered doors.

            He thought it a shame; he would have enjoyed opening those perfumed freaks standing at attendance. He imagined their horror as the putrid stench of offal corrupted their precious flowery aura. Many told of the garish fashion of lowland women, but the tower-jarl's wife seemed the apex of restraint in the face of _that_ company. She wore ceremony over theatricality, and in Joric’s opinion looked almost beautiful for it. She would make a good wife, Joric decided, were she not some fragile imperial.

            The chain-armored escort was exchanged for another of similar build and identical dress, who bid them follow with pronounced hand-gestures. Hjolmar began to speak in the soldier's Reikspiel and left Joric, again, the oblivious bystander.

...

Their assigned lodgings were not, as Hjolmar had warned, a stable. Instead they were corralled into a two-storied wooden box that heretofore seemed home only to spiders, and furnished in similar totality by a thick sea of dust.

            "What is this?" Valka asked, her tone still noticeably devoid of her usual belligerence.

            "This is a _mansion_ ," Hjolmar responded. "Like a longhouse, for lowlanders. Temporary, I assure you all."

            Joric had difficulty keeping his face neutral. He looked at the gathered Norsca, noting they did not bother to expend the effort. A ripple of unease settled across Joric’s back.

            _Why did I ever learn of leadership? I can't ignore anything anymore._

            He looked back to Hjolmar. His jarl’s eyes were narrow, his smile uncertain.

            _He is wary, but only of them. He knows he treads on thin ice, but is convinced he cannot fall. Fool, you’ve done so once already._

Joric did not want these thoughts. He wanted things to be simple, and preferably violent in some capacity. Failing that, he wanted freedom from the bile that now seemed to flow in place of blood between his closest kin.

Joric left Hjolmar to his grandstanding, to his plots and schemes and smug manipulation. He had heard more than enough within that skyward tooth they called a tower. He would see the rest of this city, he decided. Perhaps the common folk would make for more agreeable company.

...

            The attendant guard seemed unprepared for Joric's sudden departure, and he watched with undisguised amusement as the man fumbled for his weapon. Joric raised one hand in a placating gesture, which seemed to attract the guards' full attention. He pulled the man's sword from its sheath without effort, his comparatively thick arm passing beneath the man’s own with apparently startling speed. He pointed the weapon skywards, rotating the thin blade to inspect all its fragile attributes.

            The man began to shout something, backing away while the blood drained from his fleshy visage. Joric gave an amused half-smile before offering him the weapon hilt-first. The man snatched it eagerly, but continued to shout in a shrill, panicked voice.

            _On second thought, maybe Sven_ could _have killed them all._

Another guard approached from the crowded street beyond, coming face to face with his desperate counterpart. They exchanged a frantic conversation before the panicked lowlander gave Joric one final look, his fleshy lips curled into a coward’s sneer, and marched away.

            The new guardsman raised a hand, in what Joric assumed was a greeting. Joric repeated the gesture, though he questioned its necessity. The man gave him a wary smile and pulled his own weapon free, a pike which terminated in splintered shards halfway up the wooden shaft.

            He was, Joric discovered, named Rolfe. Despite their best efforts little more could be shared verbally, though there was a mutual understanding of the word _highness_. With all attempts to speak thwarted, Rolfe opted for a more visual tour of the city, gesturing to stores of drink, dwellings of women apparently very eager to find a husband, and pens of livestock.

            More interesting than the sharp architecture omnipresent smell of animal dung were the people themselves. They looked like slaves: hunched, dirty, and radiating well-learned fear. He wondered if the empire too relied on the labor of the captured, or if the southern jarls truly cared so little for their warband.

            He stood several heads taller than the stinking masses, and they flooded past them like a tide of vermin. They felt fragile as they shoved past, all avoiding eye-contact with the giant in their midst. They were like children, frightened of a father's wrathful judgment.

            _Or a mothers'._

            In time, they arrived at the tower, unblemished white jutting from the squalor like an iceberg amidst the Black Seas. The porcelain sheen all but burned in the sunlight, immaculate even where it met the verdant garden at its base. The guards on patrol here were a melding of the mounted warriors in metal, and the leather-bound pikemen of the streets. Cloth of chain hung loose beneath sashes and shawls of the city's red and white, and each marched in rigid lockstep. Joric imagined these were the jarl's honor-guard, those chosen to fight alongside him in battle, while the mounted warriors forged deep into enemy lines.

            Wandering the gardens was the jarl's wife, now dressed in loose-fitting robes of muted shade, and capped by a hat so comically wide Joric couldn’t help but smile. She was flanked on either side by three guardsmen, though it seemed she did her best to ignore their presence. Instead, her attention remained on admiring the colorful flora at the tower base.

            Joric was vaguely aware of Rolfe staring up at him, probably some stern look about ogling the jarl's bedmate. Whether a product of a month where the only female company was more masculine than the men, or simply some strange attraction to her slender limbs and elegant posture, Joric decided the consequences probably didn't matter.

            As if hearing the thought, the woman turned her gaze toward him. This was not the imperious stare she gave at court, though her eye was still the color of healthy grass, and her pale skin was still smooth as whale bone. Beneath the shade of her hat, one eye stared at him with a pained, defeated look Joric had never seen before, but knew more than intimately. Her other eye was forced shut by a palm-sized bruise.

 

**Hjolmar**

**2318**

            **_Weak,_** The chains roared in his ears, their heavy clank and hissing embrace somehow rising above the volcanic wind as he fell. **_You abandon your own strength_**.

            Hjolmar felt acid tears burn canyons into his taut cheeks, and clenched teeth forced blood oozing from tortured gums. He wanted to plead, to cry out in desperation for what Hel itself demanded of him. He knew such a plea would not help him. He could not make such a plea if he tried.

            **_But you wear the crown. It is not for the chosen to spurn their blessings_**.

            The choir of laughing daemons seemed to find the sentiment amusing. Mere mockery heightened into something painful, an uncontrolled, maddening blast of noise that rang with lunacy. It was the laughter that forced vomit from one's stomach, that made blood run from ears and tore hair from scalps.

            **_Give me your love, and the chains of weakness will be undone._**

**_Your love._ **

**_Your l_ **

...

The ground came. It was not, however, the sea of murder in his dreamscape, but the dust-caked floorboards of an unlit bedroom. He pushed himself upright, coughing up the plumes of dust inhaled moments prior.

            Thin shafts of light pierced the moth-eaten blinds, casting sharp white specks across the soft edges of unpolished floorboards. He groaned, and came to his feet.

...

As he walked to Hannesberg tower, Hjolmar thought of this fresh demand for love. It seemed remarkably uncharacteristic of The War God to demand love of all things. Undiluted devotion yes, but _love_? He wondered if this was some new torment, a trap to propel him down a road of further humiliation.

            _Humiliation? My plan resolved as expected, Sven is dead and these idiot lowlanders welcomed me with open arms. Yet what little trust my kin held for me is gone. I failed to kill Sven myself. I have allowed us to be swept aside, into some abandoned dusty tomb._

            He shook his head like a dog attempting to cast water off its fur. He resolved to amend that situation during today's meeting. He imagined the vitki held sway just as Kel had with Hjolmar’s father.

            Hjolmar grimaced as he shoved past one of the lowlanders who refused to step from his stride, toppling the fragile woman, breadbasket and all, into the muddy road. The others parted for him after that, his stride long and unbroken. When he claimed Volkord's seat as master of Svarland, he decided the nobility would be cast into the mud as well; all would be slaves for Hjolmar and his kin. He believed that would please them.

            **_Empty devotion to dead men_** , whispered the crowding peasantry and gusts of wind. **_Your love will be the last._**

            "Love has no place in the court of the Blood God," he grunted under his breath, his voice hoarse with frustration.

            **_No, it does not._**

...

            Two guards received Hjolmar at the gate, and he wondered whether this was merely formality, or if Volkord actually believed they would be able to protect or control him. They travelled again through the throne room, empty now for all but a few servants, and up the spiral stairs to the tower's uppermost chamber. Renuald waited inside, presently in discussion with Volkord himself.

            _"Ah, Vorkjal. Not so savage afterall, eh?"_ Volkord spoke with a cocked eyebrow and nominal grin _. "My guards tell me you speak Reikspiel."_

            Hjolmar bobbed his head in agreement. _"Meaning only, Jarl. Enough to give orders, receive reports. Do prefer language of Norsca,"_ Hjolmar kept his face calm, his jaw slack. He was relieved this answer seemed to satisfy Volkord, who showed no embarrassment that his words in court had been understood.

            _"As you were then, friends,"_ he gave them each a nod and left the room, attendant guards parting for his passage and resuming their vigil.

            Hjolmar turned back to Renuald. "Short on trust, vitki?" he asked.

            "Simply a precaution, Jarl. Don't worry, they won’t know what we're saying, I doubt anyone else on this island has bothered to study your tongue. I, by contrast, find it quite fascinating."

            "Ah, I am amusing to vitki Renuald Louis. Maybe that is a privilege in these lands."

            Renuald chuckled politely, but his sky-blue eyes remained impassive. "I'm sure you're eager to learn why I asked for you. Any ‘ _savage’_ who bothers to learn our tongue is doubtlessly a cut above his peers."

            Hjolmar accepted the compliment with an agreeable smile. Renuald gestured Hjolmar over to a stone dish sculpted atop a carved leg, its features softened by time.

            As Hjolmar approached the plinth, he began to notice the sorcerous wonders housed in the apex sanctum. An entire wall doubled as a bookshelf, packed to the brim with well-kept tomes of all size and make. The ceiling, beyond his periphery on entering, seemed one with the sky. The curved walls reached into the heavens, gradating to incongruous clouds and shafts of sunlight.

            Yet the object of Renuald's attention seemed mundane, something that would scarcely be of interest in a dusty cellar, much less a chamber bleeding with etheric tides. He looked down at their reflections, rendered flawless by the water’s glass-smooth surface.

            "This is my prophet's mirror. The waters were harvested from a spring held sacred by the elves, and indeed it is as if the winds of magic are attracted to it. I am a vitki of the Azyr Order, the order of the heavens. I can bend the climate to my desires, but this is merely the most obvious of my abilities. My true calling is prophecy, the reading of the future from choice signs. I have seen your coming, Jarl."

            Hjolmar looked at the man with wary incredulity. "Visions? How specific?”

            Renuald laughed. "Specific? Perhaps you think I saw your face in the water? No, Jarl, but the signs paint a clear circumstance. A battle, a herald for one greater, comes to our city. One of the foe turns, slaying his comrades to our benefit. We could spurn this ally, and visit devastation on ourselves, or embrace him, and be raised to new heights of wealth and power."

            "You believe I am this turned foe? That Sven’s attack warns of something worse?"

            Renuald straightened, placed his fingers together, and adopted the look of a wise grey retelling ballads to a child. "This island, Svarland, is only technically ruled by the Empire. Most of it is wilderness, though the forests to the south contain a meager community of elves. Svarland’s true masters, however, are the dwarves of _Karaz Zarr_ , Mountainhearth in your tongue. They have settlements all across this land, lying beneath the surface. While we are 'safe' here, we know there are no tunnels beneath the tower, should they mass against us we would not last half the time needed for word to return to the mainland."

            "And you think these dwarves will rebel?"

            "With all but certainty. Dwarven legs are too short to bend, as they say. It will take little and less to incite an uprising."

            _Well, the slaughter of an entire town may rouse them to arms._

            "So, based on the whispers of draugr I must be welcomed as an ally. You should know, Renuald Louis, the last vitki who claimed knowledge beyond himself tried to kill me."

            "And I have no doubt he now feeds the worms,” Renuald’s voice was weary, almost bored. “Yes, yes, your threats are acknowledged Jarl Vorkjal, but if I may direct your attention upwards..." He gestured to the roiling heavens above, a soft thunder answering his raised hand. "I have weapons of my own. Together, we may accomplish wonders, deeds worthy of saga. Neither will benefit from undeserved animosity."

            "Do allies in south often put friends in dusty boxes? Norsca tradition holds such actions as insulting."

            "Ah, well I'll see what I can do. Our good Lord Volkord takes great stock in my visions, you know. Perhaps some good omen about you, or a nebulous prophecy about how bringing 'savages' to court will grant him long life."

            _So, you fabricate these prophecies to manipulate your betters. You must think I'm too dull to notice you doing the same to me._

            “Thank you, vitki.”

            “Please, take it as a gesture of my trust. To the matter at hand, these dwarves _are_ coming. If not in a moon’s turn, then by the winter. Some slight, imagined or otherwise, is going to set them against us and Hellman Volkord’s leadership will see us all dead. We need a strong ruler, one to lead the men competently and, pardon my word choice, savagely. The armies of _Karaz Zarr_ will offer no less.”

            “And I am this leader?” Hjolmar asked, miming dumbstruck surprise. “You will suggest me as warlord to your court?”

            “Well, not quite, mighty jarl. Lord Volkord is too proud to allow someone he sees as anything less than nobility manage his armies. Nor will he relinquish _veto pow_ -ehm, the final say, to anyone else. Even if he did sanction your leadership, it would be to ensure your suicide via front-line fighting. I have known the man for many years, and he will never bend on such an issue. We require a more drastic solution.”

            “You plan to kill him?” Hjolmar did not bother feigning surprise, instead letting his ire at the jarl’s earlier dismissal bubble through to the surface. The truth was more potent bait than any lie he could conjure.

            Renuald’s smile spread into something more genuine. “Indeed, I’m glad to see you hold no false love for the man. We can’t replace him with you of course, the court would never allow it, but I have another candidate who will bend easily to our... council. He will be the face of leadership, while you and I form the backbone of this city. Wisdom and power unmatched, forged into a single striking edge.”

            Hjolmar weighed what the slight man was saying, wary of the offer if only for its convenience. Surely he would be the ideal scapegoat in the wake of Volkord’s murder, but if the dwarven threat materialized, which it surely would in the wake what Hjolmar did to Urbaz, Renuald would need him for the battle to come. Furthermore, if he did not accept this offer, he became a liability, and he could scarcely fight through Hannesburg’s full might with some twenty warriors at his back.

            “I wish to meet this puppet,” Hjolmar said flatly, buying what time he could to consider the option without a full committal. “To see if he can be trusted.”

            Renuald’s smile broadened yet further, doubtlessly convinced Hjolmar’s ambition alone would see him buy into these dreams of regicide. “Naturally, though it may surprise you that he requested the same. Dinner on the morrow will be ideal, I think. Oh, and Lord Brennen requests you bring your entourage as well.”

 

**Ragarin**

**2318**

Ragarin had once vowed to himself that, if ever he sat the throne, he would do so with a straight back. A slouch betrayed laziness, and signaled a lack of respect for the office held. He now deeply regretted that promise.

            Mountainhearth's throne was ancient, said to be carved from the chamber by its founders. Whatever runes had marked it in centuries past had worn away to nothing, yet the rigid, boxy shape of the seat remained. It was monstrously uncomfortable to sit upon, and Ragarin's warped body did not help his discomfort.

            Still armored and helmed, he sat with weapon in hand, _Uzkul_ 's obsidian shaft shining in brazier light. Before him gathered nobles, merchant lords, priests, guild masters, and officers. They were, of course, arguing amongst themselves, as he knew they would. He sat silent sentinel over them, patiently waiting for the noise to die on its own accord. He watched their squabbling for close to an hour. When several attempts to leave in a huff were interrupted by a barred chamber door, they began to understand that Hror the Unyielding had not summoned them for idle chatter.

            He let the silence run long after its inception, allowing the pregnant air to smother whatever pride still flourished before his office. _Hror would hate this_ , Ragarin decided. _He would hate me for what I’ve done in his name._

            He stood before the assembly, crushing his doubt into powder. There was no room for uncertainty now. His path was not a matter of debate. He was right, he was vengeance incarnate. There was nothing else.

            “Many of you,” he began, letting the accusation hang in empty air before continuing. “Have squabbled like squigs for power over your own kind. The tenants of lust and greed have replaced those of courage and the grudge. You did nothing to stop Grobi Rik from soiling our legacy as he sold us wholesale to the empire of _umgi_. That is tantamount to _treason_.”

            A chorus of protests erupted from the gathered nobility, rife with as many accusations towards each other as Ragarin himself. One particularly bold dwarf pushed his way to the fore, his knotted brown beard and tattooed nose indicating the Molgord clan. Krestus Molgord was the city’s second most powerful banker, if Ragarin recalled correctly.

            “It was not our choice!” he roared up at the throne, finger thrust forward in accusation. “Grobi sought no council! And as for letting _umgi_ man our walls, we knew nothing of that! If we did, we would have-“

            “I know your ignorance of his latest, idiot plans,” Ragarin’s voice was just below a shout, but the engineers of the hall had made up for in acoustics what they lacked in the construction of furniture. His voice pierced the squabbling like a ram through a wooden gate. “I know the excuse of obeying your king’s decree is a just, if cowardly, evasion. If such things were not a part of my consideration, we would be speaking instead at your execution.”

            To this, Krestus was silent.

            “But you will nevertheless pay for your inaction. So I offer a choice. Abandon your names and join the commoners. Live as they do, attempting to claw their way out of the squalor, and battling the very systems you created to keep them there. Or, join the guard. Fight honorably beneath Captain Firebeard’s command until death. Learn the price of our security.”

            Another wave of shouting met the pronouncement, and this time Ragarin let their protests wash over him. His lips curled into a smile beneath his helmet. That such argument persisted even now was only proving his beliefs. These men had bowed and ceded when ruinous decrees allowed them to cling to their power like shit to a boot. Take that away and, oh, now the outrage, now the furious protest.

            Grobi’s wife, still wearing her ornate gown and crown of silver, shouldered her way from the press, the wrist of her son clasped firmly in one hand. “And what of me? What of my son? Are the rightful rulers of this cowardly gathering to join Firebeard’s soldiery? Or perhaps we should beg, beg until he dies withered in an alleyway?”

            Ragarin’s smile widened. “Well, my lady, the fairer sex is uncommon in the guard, but perhaps this time I can make an exception.”

            His good mood was broken with the quarantine as the great doorway to the room’s south slivered open to admit a single guard. Nobility and guard alike turned to stare at the bowing dwarf.

            “My king,” he exclaimed through exhausted breaths. “I am shamed for the interruption, but Captain Firebeard demands your attention.”

            Ragarin stood. “And what could be so important as to defy my solitary order of ‘no interruptions?’ As to dare _demand_ my presence?” It was all he could do to keep his temper from murderous eruption.

            “My Captain assures my King that he will understand the discretion upon his arrival. Please, my king, I bid you follow.”

            Ragarin toyed with the idea of refusal, but he knew that such would be petty defiance for its own sake. He nodded, and descended from Mountain’s Throne, the Circle following in close lockstep. The crowd parted as he walked, each looking on the edge of violence. That none of them crossed that threshold only further confirmed Ragarin’s distaste. When he reached the door, he gestured to three of the circle.

            “Brother Tuk will accompany me. You three will oversee the choices of our guests. Let none leave who refuse.”

            The remaining Circle bowed in unison, and turned to face the captive nobility.

…

Ragarin was already skirting the precipice of violence as he was led to the upper dungeons. These higher cells, reserved for especially violent drunks and those under investigation, were designed only for containment rather than punishment. When he saw what was housed within, he could scarcely move, every limb was taut with hideous rage.

            Sitting cross-legged behind the iron bars was an elf. She wore robes of purple and gold, which folded neatly and symmetrically about her meditating form. Blonde hair ran from her brow to her back, straightened into a glimmering waterfall that lacked any imperfection or variation in shape. Closed eyes ran up her face at a sharp angle, and she seemed serene despite the incarceration.

            “What is the meaning of this?” Ragarin just barely articulated through ground teeth. “What is _it_ doing here?”

            Hazkal, apparently unfazed by Ragarin’s near-murderous rage, responded with little more than irritation toward the frail creature. “It came with two guards to our gates this morning. No one knows how they got so close, but once there they announced their presence plainly enough. This one claims it’s an ambassador, come to deliver a warning to you my king.”

            Ragarin heard spit plink across the inside of his faceplate as he spoke again. “Well maybe Grobi Rik courted with elven whores, but I don-“

            “It asked for you by name, my King. _Your_ name, Ragarin.”

            Ragarin looked at the elf, whose eyes were now open. Her irises were dull gold, and formed small semi-circles beneath lids painted a heavy purple. Ragarin could find no intent in her gaze, no feeling, not even apparent intelligence. The opaque gaze of elves was one of the many reasons they were known for duplicity. It seemed wrought into their very being.

            When the elf spoke, it was as if in song. Normally guttural Khazalid flowed like silk through her thin lips, each word sung more than spoken. “I have travelled from _mir’nilmi`ishyq_ , by command of my holy Phoenix-lord, called Caemil Quyl-Isha yn Aeskhaine, Gleaming Sabre of his Divine Justice, Flame Eternal within the Souls of Elves, Reluctant but Righteous Slayer of-”

            “Get on with it,” interrupted Hazkal.

            “…to deliver grave tidings unto you, most rightly honored King Ragarin Dreng.”

            Ragarin let out a growl that was half amusement, half ire. “I don’t care what ‘tidings’ you carry, knife-ear. Your kind was forbidden from entering our tunnels when the Winged Lord fell. No pretty lies will change that.”

            There was a notable pause before the elf spoke again. “His majesty’s message is of your foe, the sun-haired Norsca called Hjolmar Vorkjal.”

            Ragarin swore under his breath. Then, he laughed, though there was no humor in it. “And what does your king want in return. Your kind always has some ulterior motive, some unspoken little scheme.”

            Again, a pause. “Your words carry truth King Ragarin Dreng, but your connotation is most unfair. You speak as though my kin act through malice, but we are above such petty actions. All we do is the betterment-“

            “What. Do. You. Want?” Ragarin said, tensing again beneath his own irritation.

            “I simply speak with measured clarity, most rightly honored King Ragarin Dreng. Already my words are harshly shortened, whole sagas abandoned for brevity, to better meet your sensibilities. I make greatest effort to be concise.” The elf raised two of her thin fingers, the movement sloth but graceful, like the slow current of molten metal. “Of the first matter I lay before you: His Majesty requests my life be spared, as well as the lives of my soldier kin.” She lowered her index finger to emphasize the point. “The second matter I bid you is this: his majesty wishes your trust in him, take his words with all due seriousness.”

            “Is that it?” Ragarin asked. “You ask only the rights of an ambassador in exchange for this knowledge? And what ‘betterment’ lies beneath this little visit?”

            Pause. “His Majesty knows the threat this child, this blind servant of the enemy gods, is too great for our kind to face alone. With your kingdom’s unmatched martial prowess, you may succeed where we would surely fail.”

            _More likely the bastard wants me to fight his war for him_. While Ragarin was wary of this message, no duplicity would keep him from Hjolmar Vorkjal. Elvish lies or otherwise, he could not afford to ignore the creature’s words.

            “Very well,” he said with no false civility. “I will spare you. Now tell me this message.”

            The elf closed her eyes and gave a slow nod. “The child of enemy gods has allies, he finds asylum within Hannesberg. All humans on Svarland are now allied.”

…

            Ragarin’s personal chambers were not that of the previous king. He could not bear to sleep in the same bed as Grobi Rik. Instead, he occupied one of the many guest quarters, a room still large enough to make him contemplate the wasted space.

            He sat alone with Daal, the bottle of liquor between them barely emptied, the minimal progress owed solely to the elder dwarf. They had spoken for hours, and Ragarin had long since grown tired of the greybeard’s cowardly advice. Even so, now was not the time to ignore his input. Far from it.

            They spoke of the elf’s words, for Ragarin knew not what to make of them.

            Daal sighed, and gripped the bridge of his nose between frail digits. This would be the third time it signaled a pointless regression of his argument. “My king, she is a knife-ear. They are bred to lie. They venerate deception. You have accomplished more than I thought possible, and Mountainhearth will surely flourish under your rule. Do not jeopardize it by giving credence to elven deceit.”

            Always this. Always caution, always contentment in what he had already done. Never vision for the future.

            “I will not let Hjolmar go unpunished. The debt must be paid, Daal,” Ragarin responded for what felt like the thousandth time. “That debate is not why I seek your council. It is not a discussion of _if_. It is a discussion of _how_.”

            “And you have ruled out assassination, my king. Only war remains, and war with Hannesberg is war with the Empire. You know you cannot fight them, you will bring the emperor’s wrath down on us and our precious history will be ash in the wind. Be patient, inform them, demand Vorkjal’s release and-“

            “And if they refuse?” Ragarin asked in terse repose. “If they refuse, and we do nothing for fear of their Emperor Magnus? They will laugh at us, Daal, and they will take what is not theirs. And all steps of the way, what will you council? Inaction! Inaction for fear of reprisal.”

            “My king, we have little choice-“

            “No, Daal. There is always a choice. Those yammering nobles learned that, I had hoped you would too. Now get out, I have tired of you. No wisdom lurks behind those tired, feeble eyes.”

            No barbed retort came from the old dwarf, who instead simply bowed his head in affirmation. “My king,” was all he said before leaving the quiet chamber.

            Daal was not to be his only council, however, and the brief respite ended with Okri’s arrival. The squire, no longer bedecked in the motley of faded ancestral armor and amateurish mail he had forged himself, now wore the fruits of palace armorsmiths. Gleaming chain links rattled and shone beneath an off-white tabard, the new livery which marked the dawn of Hror’s rule.

            It was not mere tradition that dictated the change of color. It was a constant reminder to Ragarin that the time of the _Kol_ was ended. A new breed of warriors would rise to take his place, ones he could not lead forever. No, the death of Hjolmar Vorkjal would mark a swift end to his brief reign.

            Ragarin gestured to the same seat Daal had occupied moments before, which the squire accepted gratefully. So too did he accept the proffered drink once Ragarin had poured. He drank with prodigious speed.

            “How may I serve, King Dreng?”

            The boy had, as expected, reacted poorly to Ragarin’s confiding his true identity. He nevertheless listened intently to Ragarin’s plight, and his loyalty soon redoubled. Okri possessed the vision Ragarin could only fantasize about in his lieutenants. He knew the necessity of Ragarin’s work, he understood the precipice Mountainhearth had come so close to sloughing free of. Most importantly, he knew of vengeance, and its tantamount importance over all else, or so he claimed.

            “Okri, my squire, have you been informed of what our captive elf had to say?”

            “Yes, my king. It claims that Hjolmar has joined with the humans living in Hannesberg.”

            “ _Claims?_ You don’t believe it then,” Ragarin asked, his frustration with Daal quickly fading.

            Okri hesitated. “Well… I’m not sure, my king.”

            “Relax, Okri. You observe every possible courtesy, and you have attended me without fail. This is not some test. I wish your honest opinion. Even the wrong answer can be informative.”

            Okri nodded, though he still appeared unsure what to make of the situation. “I don’t trust it, my king. Intent, I mean. The only thing I believe is true is that Hjolmar hides with the other humans. Whatever good will it claims must be false, elves are never kind for its own sake.”

            “But you think the core is the truth? Why that, and not simply part of whatever ploy they are attempting?”

            “What good would it do? You could send an emissary, and if Hjolmar isn’t there, you know they are lying. It’s too easy a falsehood to dispel, if it is a falsehood. But if he is in Hannesberg, will you not go to war? There are probably several greater advantages to that.”

            Ragarin smiled. “Aye, good. Very good. You will make a great strategist one day, Okri. Yes, I have discussed this same issue with Daal and Hazkal, both of which you outraced to this point, the latter by a very large margin. The important question, though, is what I do with this information.”

            Okri struggled to remain courteous, to hide the disbelief on his face. Despite his best efforts, the look surfaced. One suggesting ‘isn’t it obvious?’ or perhaps ‘are you stupid?’

            “Answer honestly,” Ragarin said after close to a minute of silence, hardening his voice by fractions.

            “War, my king. Command they surrender the Norsca to you. And if you are refused, bring war.”

            “Aye, but what of the Empire? What of the elves? Are we not made vulnerable by this? Will we not be seen as a threat? The High King will not speak for us here; we are not sons of the heart land. We may send our grievances to The Emperor, but we cannot afford to wait for his approval or otherwise. The coward will have slipped through our fingers by then.”

            “Does caution matter, my king, when weighed against your grudge?”

            Ragarin felt his smile grow into something ugly. “No, my squire, it does not.”

 

**Hjolmar**

**2318**

Hjolmar’s muscles screamed in protest as he bent low, arms struggling to hold the rope anywhere but flush to his chest. It was wrapped about a child-sized rock excavated from the crumbling city walls near the manor’s yard, and was presently pressed to Hjolmar’s back. He felt like his teeth were going to snap.

            While never the strongest of his kin, such a task would have been no great effort before he was crowned. Now he felt scarcely mightier than a lowlander, and his limbs seemed to have forgotten their agility. This was not the first day he had trained as such, and the ascent to his old proficiency dominated all his time not spent in planning.

            Reaching the hundred count with a roar of exhaustion, he let the boulder fall. It buried itself halfway into the earth behind him. His muscles felt raw, but he needed his blade work.

            He scanned the yard for Joric, but he remained absent. Hjolmar wondered what had consumed him so that even weapons training was to be ignored. He looked to his other companions, fourteen presently locked in one on one sparring. Hjolmar crushed a rising apprehension; he could not lead if he ran to frailty.

            Valka noticed his coming and quickly put Vidar, heretofore holding his own, on his back. She placed a heavy boot on his chest. Vidar may as well have tried to move the city walls with his hands as pry Valka’s foot off clear.

            “Well,” he said in a voice made small. “Look who decided to join us.”

            The others stopped as well, and stared at Hjolmar with a mix of curiosity and contempt.

            “I admit I’ve weakened since the vitki bolted a piece of iron to my skull, yes. I was wondering if you might help me with that, Vidar.”

            “Sorry,” he coughed. “I think I’m done for today; Valka’s trying to break my ribs.”

            Valka looked at him hopefully, a gaze he did his best to avoid. He looked questioningly at the others, and they used this as an excuse to return to their own routine.

            “I need a challenge,” Valka said, her voice uncommonly pensive. “It’s been a while since we fought hard, Hjol. Our fight on the boat was poor.” Her mouth parted into an ugly half-smile of chipped and broken teeth.

            Hjolmar did not return the expression.

            “Perhaps we should instead muster our patience for the farce this evening,” he said, spinning on his heel.

…

The Brennens, uncommonly eager to meet a band of outland raiders, received them that evening. The vitki was in attendance, whether to prevent violence between his assets or simply to stare in amused derision at the protracted farce remained unanswerable. Great padded benches were dragged into the room by slaves after it had become abundantly clear the flimsy dining chairs would not survive their use. All pretense of a somewhat average Imperial dinner was abandoned after that, when an unfortunate slave attempted to size Valka for a dress.

            _“They are not slaves, dear, they’re_ serfs _,”_ had been the Lady Brennen’s response to Hjolmar’s apology for the young woman’s death. When asked to clarify, she assured Hjolmar that _“slaves are dirty and despise their masters. Serfs are part of a wondrous whole and bear their position with content solidarity.”_

            Hjolmar believed some of the serfs were still scrubbing blood off the walls as they ate, no doubt in that same ‘content solidarity’. To the Brennens, however, the whole situation seemed to satisfy every expectation. They continued to stuff their fat faces as if nothing had happened, and looked at the Norsca as a child might view a friendly wolf cub.

            Despite Hjolmar’s insistence the meal was a necessary step toward overthrowing the jarl, the attendant Norsca stared in silent derision of their leader. This did not stop them from eagerly shoveling the prepared meats down their gullets. The lone exception was Joric, who seemed in an uncharacteristically foul mood throughout, though its focus appeared distant. He simply sat, staring silent at some invisible point before him, all while slowly bending his fork in half with twitching, restless hands.

            Atticus Brennen paid no mind to the obvious tension between his guests. By Hjolmar’s reckoning, he didn’t pay much attention to anything. A prodigious mustache curled upwards from a bulbous, pink nose, apparently the sole object of personal hygiene. His thinning hair fell lazily across his brow, and a puffy wardrobe bore the wrinkles of careless storage. The mustache, though, was all but immaculate.

            _“So,”_ Brennen began after a length of relative silence. _“Renuald here tells me you’re quite the fighter. Certainly you look the part, but did you not come to fight a force some fifty of your own kind with a mere twenty? Sounds a poor prospect to me.”_

            Hjolmar smiled graciously. _“Yes, but we know he went to fight fellow Imperials, know we can help those in need and combine forces. It was our only choice; settlement was too small to outmatch Sven Oathbreaker’s warriors numerically.”_

            _“Hm, ‘numerically,’ yes. A big word for a sav-hmm. A warrior of the wastes, shall we say.”_

            Hjolmar laughed in that throaty, unsubtle way that he observed most idiots to laugh in. _“Yes, I learn from lowlanders who settle with us. Shame that they perished in fighting.”_

            _“Ah, yes, truly it is. But of course, our valiant city guard would have gotten the job done sooner or later eh?”_ Brennen turned to his wife, and they both gave an affirmative chuckle. _“Well, I’m no military genius, Jarl Hjolmar, but I have seen big men,_ big _men, men who could peel the hide from your back fall dead five seconds into a battle. So, impress me. Tell me something, some deed or some plan, something to convince me that you are worthy of this little endeavor of Renuald and I.”_

            Hjolmar could barely suppress his shock. Renuald had assured him this man was a dullard, easy to manipulate and quick to hand off responsibility. Thus far, the man had lived up to that expectation. This, though. Perhaps it was out of some unique intelligence, not simple greed, that he sought to overthrow Volkord.

            _“Well,”_ Hjolmar began, stretching the following pause to collect his thoughts _. “Dwarves have siege weapons, yes? Great machines of metal to destroy walls and castles. Machines Hannesberg does not have? Well, these machines probably have long range, longer range than archers. More power than rifles. Disadvantage for us, but, Dwarves are not smart in fighting on surface. Arrows not effective in tunnels, not from afar. So, we change terrain around Hannesberg, that way best positions for them are close. Close enough for arrow rain to kill machine operators.”_

            Renuald was the first to respond. _“You see, Atticus? Volkord hasn’t even entertained the idea of fighting the dwarves, and Hjolmar here already has a plan to outdo their superior war machines.”_

            Brennen smiled. _“Yes, I believe you may just be the ideal warrior in the coming tumult, Jarl Hjolmar. Still, that is a bridge we can prepare to cross another day. For now, we of course have the more immediate issue.”_

            Brennen turned to Renuald. _“Translate, if you would.”_

            The azyr mage gave a shallow nod of affirmation. “Thank you all for your attendance, noble warriors of the northern wastes. I trust your jarl has informed you the purpose of this meeting?”

            Grunts of affirmation rose from around the table, and the announcement seemed to rouse Joric from his brooding.

            “Your jarl will lead us to battle against the dwarves of Karaz Zarr , but first we must remove Hellman Volkord from his position as Lord of Hannesberg. Now, Hannesberg’s populace is too small for any assassin’s to find work here, and if there are any it is more likely a peasant with some knife-tricks who thinks he can take on the emperor. The plot’s only illicit activity is the murder itself, as Lord Brennen is next in line by family ties, so we have kept our conspiracy small. No need for undue risks. All that said, I think it best that-“

            “I’ll do it.”

            The room seemed to shift as one, turning to face Joric, who finally let his fork clatter to the table. It had been folded into a thin letter ‘v’. Hjolmar suddenly felt a frightening uncertainty. He had known Joric all his life, had happily absorbed every little detail of his mannerisms and quirks, what made him laugh and what made him upset. This was new. The hate written on Joric’s face was more extreme than Hjolmar had ever seen. It ringed his eyes and curled his lips; it tightened his jaw and crumpled his brow in a completely alien manner. It was as if Joric had been replaced by a total stranger.

            Renuald smiled wide, as a man might smile after seeing his child declare bloodlust towards the tribe’s enemies for the first time. “Joric, yes? Jarl Hjolmar’s second?”

            “ _You’re supposed to be translating, Sorcerer,”_ Brennen interrupted with surprising intensity.

            Hjolmar let out a nervous laugh. _“Apologies. I must speak with Joric in private.”_

            _“No, you stay,”_ said Brennen in all but furious demand. _“I want to know what this plan is and I will not be forced out. I am to be the new lord of this city; I will not be plotted around!”_

            Hjolmar felt his right eye twitch, and the warning of sweat form along his brow. He wanted to scream at Joric for his stupidity, if not for this uncharacteristic fugue. Was Joric blind to Renuald’s trap? How easy it would be to incriminate the barbarian outsiders when he was done with them.

            But Hjolmar remained silent. He could not jeopardize the alliance here, now. Hjolmar could not afford to lose the support of Hannesberg’s nobility. His only defiance was a pleading look to Joric, but their eyes never so much as met.

            “Wonderful,” said the vitki, before explaining the gist of their conversation to Lord Brennen. “Allow me to enlighten you on what must be done.”

 

**Joric**

**2318**

Hjolmar had raged at him the rest of the evening, shouts of ‘monumental short-sightedness,’ and ‘playing into their hands’ among the more repetitive phrases. Joric cared little, Hjolmar would find a way to outmaneuver them in the end; he always did. He told Hjolmar as much, though withheld his reasons for taking the opportunity. Little of value was exchanged after that, though it was done with much sound and fury.

            In truth Joric’s mind had been elsewhere, and his usual penchant for diffusive humor now seemed distant, unobtainable. All he could think about was the black ring under the woman’s eye, the same black ring that must have marked his own, small eyes seven years ago. It was a mark he recognized instantly. It was a mark Hjolmar never did.

            He had never retaliated, despite fantasies of the like. Eventually the beatings ended, but the hole they carved inside him did not. He could have struck back if he wanted, he was bigger than his mother by thirteen. Such lack of justice was upon him. But the tower jarl’s wife was so frail, like a child to her husband, never to grow. Joric did not want the hatred which festered within him, not at first, but the more he thought, the more enticing such violent fantasies became.

            And so, he would murder Jarl Volkord.

            The plan was simple. The vitki, apparent master of the weather-wyrd, could easily bear Joric up to the tower summit on a controlled wind. It was scarcely difficult to mask his ascent in the dead of night; no guards patrolled the empty air about the porcelain tower. Renuald would inform the jarl of a prophecy from his enchanted water, one he did not divulge the details of beyond “post no guards outside your bedchamber tonight,” and Joric would steal him out in sleep. He would then throw Volkord from the tower’s summit, making it look an unexpected suicide.

            As Joric approached the place of ascent, he considered the myriad other ways to accomplish the same task. Surely the vitki could poison him, and then throw the corpse from the tower himself. Joric supposed Hjolmar may have had a point about incrimination. Joric also didn’t care.

Renuald waited clad in commoner’s attire by the keep’s rear wall, fingers steepled in patient waiting. He seemed the fulcrum of this dim street, the dirt-brown city curling about him as if in embrace.

“Pleasant night for a stroll, eh Joric?” His intonation was over-polite even compared to Hjolmar’s.

“Do your work, vitki. Murder shouldn’t be presaged by idle chatter.”

“Of course, though you will really have to explain such customs to me one day.”

As the winds pulled him skyward, Joric was overcome with unbidden nostalgia. The aetheric gust was uncannily silent, but the flapping of his sleeves and the air’s cold bite reminded him of home. The bluffs overlooking the Sea of Chaos carried the very same wind, and for all the tumult and frustrated impotence that drove him then, he still missed that meager camp of the Bonesplitters. He missed the warmth of the longhouse fire and the crackle of animal fat from whatever feast they were preparing. He missed the crunch of snow underfoot and the shoddy wooden architecture. More than anything, he missed the solidarity held by Hjolmar, Valka, and himself. It seemed as though it was them against the world, and he was content with that. At least they had each other; he knew theirs was worth tenfold the friendship of others.

            Perhaps now he was the only one who did.

            Leather boots creaked softly upon the cobbled roof, and blissful weightlessness left his body. The nostalgia fled, and anger greedily took its place.

            He descended slowly the tower steps; not for his own sake, but for any guards whose patrol took them dangerously close to his target. They had no hope of killing him in such a narrow passage, but it would not be a quiet affair. Stealth was no stranger to Joric, many were the hunts through frozen wastes in search of prey with sharp ears and sharper claws, though the frustrating truncation of such endeavors did nothing to improve his mood.

            On he descended past the first door, one marked with the strange symbol Renuald wore on his cap, until he reached the royal bedchamber. The door was well-oiled and unlocked, opening in near-silence before a light push. He could smell alcohol, nothing overpowering, though he imagined it might be for his frail lowland cousins.

            Hellman Volkord lay naked on his back, barely covered by a thick sheet of Hannesberg crimson. The woman lay there as well, curled tightly at the far end as if recoiling from her bedmate. Joric assumed she probably was. He leaned low, carefully extracting the jarl from his resting place; the deadweight flail of his limbs suggesting the vitki had slipped something into his before-bed liquor.

            He began the tedious ascent up the two-story wind, unhindered by the excess weight, and used Volkord to force the hatch open. The wind howled an uncommon fury, no doubt another intervention by the vitki, which Joric guessed would smother any escaping sounds his ordeal may produce. This was good, as he had no intention of haste.

            He carefully lowered the prone man to the chill cobbles at his feet, before slamming the tip of his boot into a bloated stomach. Volkord let out a low groan and clumsily grasped at his abused torso, rolling over his left side before expelling rancid wine. Joric watched as he dry-heaved for close to a minute before adopting a tentative half-sit. He wiped the red staining from his chin, barely cogent of his surroundings. When he finally turned to Joric, his face was a mask of drunken confusion.

            Joric punched him square in the nose, a fleeting excitement mired by disappointment. He had hoped the man less inebriated when he beat him to death.

            With each hit, he felt the force of blows growing weaker, if only by infinitesimal amounts. He could not, as fantasized, imagine it was his mother whose teeth he dislodged. Nor could he see the man himself, even as he mashed the flesh of his face into torn meat. Sometimes he saw the woman with her pleading, cyclopean stare. That usually arrested the current blow before it could land. Most commonly, he saw Joric. Mirrors were an unknown technology to the Bonesplitters, and even then such vanity would only be viewed with disgust. The nearby sea, never at rest, also failed in this regard. Joric had no concept, not one based in fact, of what he looked like as a child. But somehow, _somehow_ , there was Joric, aged only twelve, his head snapping back repeatedly as uncaring fists bludgeoned his face into an uneven morass of tissue.

            An audible _crack_ punctuated the meaty thud of Joric’s next blow, as something broke in the jarl of Hannesberg. “It’s not real…” was a shallow, whispered mantra that spilled from the man’s split lips as surely as fragments of teeth and wheezing gasps for air. Joric felt the malice leave him like the sweat now beading his naked arms. There was no vindication in drawing this out. There was no sport in toying with the weak. Such was Olavi’s way, one that rankled and disgusted.

            Joric heard the wooden hatch slam shut, and a small squeal of alarm. He turned to see the jarl’s bedmate, hands clutched over her mouth as one eye bulged in shock. The other was only barely visible, a thin sliver of green beneath a blackened harem of saturated flesh.

            Hellman didn’t seem to notice the new presence, but Joric could focus on little else. Her hair was tangled and unkempt, spilling haphazardly from her scalp like golden sinew. Her nightgown was a plain white, one of fine silk but without any detail to distract from the woman beneath. The oppressive winds pushed the gown into the creases of her body, leaving the long garment anything but formless.

            When she peeled the pale fingers from her face, they revealed not some gasp of horror, but a smile. Barely a smile, for the edges of her lips only just curled upwards, yet still it managed to portend real joy, joy almost depthless in its novelty. She looked to her bedmate, then back to Joric, her smile only fractionally more pronounced. She gave him a single nod.

            Joric felt smothered fury alight his veins anew, and he turned back to Hellman Volkord, who still lay sputtering about impossibilities. He grabbed the man by the neck and groin, and heaved him violently overhead. He was light, giving barely more trouble than Joric’s own greataxe. He could hear the man wincing, could feel his weak attempts to wriggle free of Joric’s grasp, earning only a tighter grip.

            He placed one booted foot on the edge of the tower, and took in the city below. Hearth smoke billowed peacefully from aggressively peaked houses, orange light bleeding from the windows below. The sky was a deep blue, punctuated by the occasional star. There was beauty here after all, not that of the north, where light danced in the sky and the endless sea stretched tumultuously away, but beauty all its own.

He threw Jarl Hellman Volkord into that beautiful night. When he burst like a diseased whale carcass on the yard below, Joric thought that red on green looked nearly as pleasing as red on white.

 

**Rickard**

**2335**

“We have much to discuss.”

            The pause that followed did little to ease Rickard’s nerves. Hjolmar had the look of a man eager to be anywhere else, rare common ground with his son.

            When he next spoke, Hjolmar’s voice was again commanding, but his attention seemed elsewhere. “You know I tried to give you a good upbringing.”

            Rickard squirmed in his doublet. Was that a question, or a statement of fact? He waited for some elaboration, some clue as to the nature of the words, and perhaps mercifully the meeting as a whole. It did not come. When Rickard eventually moved to reply, he was interrupted.

            “I’m sure you have questions. We’ve scarcely spoken these past twelve years. Nor would you have found success in asking after me.”

            Rickard supposed this was correct, though rarely did he speak of his sire as he now believed the man had hoped. Only one thought of his father demanded his interest, and it was not one he asked of shallow acquaintances. When he noticed Hjolmar’s expectant glare, he scrambled to find an alternative topic of discussion.

            “Why do you wear a rusty iron crown?” Rickard asked clumsily, finding the most shallowly obvious subject of discussion.

            Hjolmar’s brow furrowed, causing the skin of his forehead to distort uncannily. He looked genuinely disappointed by the question. “Because it is attached to my head.”

            Rickard cracked a nervous smile; he had thought his father incapable of humor. The fractional narrowing of Hjolmar’s eyes only supported that belief. With an exasperated sigh, Hjolmar lifted the golden locks over his forehead to reveal the dry, reddened skin circling an iron bar thrust into his skull.

            Rickard was awash with sudden panic, and pushed against the armrests of his chair in an effort to back away. He was no stranger to battlefields, and even less the dead. Yet somehow this wound, this irritated patch of flesh brought forth a feeling of dread not unlike his first encounter with the Sons of Hror. There was some gravity to the wound, some deep foreboding Rickard could not dispel.

            Hjolmar let the hair fall back across his brow, and Rickard felt like a strangled man freed from the assailant’s grip. “What…” he began, his voice breaking for the first time in three years. “What happened to you?”

            “A sorcerer bolted it into my skull. He died shortly afterwards.”

            Again, Rickard waited for some further elaboration. His father’s insistent stoicism signaled that, no, there was no intent to continue. Rickard supposed it was his place to ask, but he quickly gained the sense he would not like the answer. What was more, for all Hjolmar’s newfound awkwardness, Rickard couldn’t shake the feeling that it was not for his own sake they had met.

            The concept curdled his dread to ire. He had heard tale of King Volkord’s methods in noble company, how he would twist innocent words into probing interrogation. The thought of Hjolmar doing this to his own son was some place beyond infuriating.

            “Why did you kill my mother?”

            Again, Hjolmar gave no reaction. “I did not kill your mother.”

            Something snapped inside Rickard. “Liar,” he began, in a voice so chilled by fury he hardly recognized it as his own. “Do you think I don’t remember that night? Did you think I wouldn’t ask about it when you summoned me here for,” he waved a hand dismissively, “whatever _this_ is? All my life I’ve wondered why you murdered the parent who _actually_ loved me, and you-“

            “Your mother killed herself,” Hjolmar interrupted.

            Rickard scanned his face for any clue, any iota that would give the lie to his words, but found none. The man’s face was near unreadable, passive to the point of vacancy; there was nothing to give the lie to his words.

             “She was not happy here, with me. I suppose I can’t blame her. There was no love lost between us.” The last sentence was spoken with a certainty Rickard could scarcely comprehend. How could two people who sired a child do so in hate? “I always hated her perfume, you know. Lavender.”

            “Killed herself?” Rickard said in a trembling voice. He didn’t know if it was anguish or anger. He could feel a thin trickle of spit descending from his curling bottom lip. “Why?”

            Hjolmar looked at him as he might an idiot. “She was not hap-”

            “ _I_ am not happy here!” Rickard barked, his trepidation forgotten. He stood, hands balled into trembling fists. “But I have friends, I have loves and desires! And I’m not such a virgin to experience that I don’t know few noble marriages are wrought with love. So why, _why_ , was your company so monstrous that my mother, my mother who loved parties and gardens and pastries and _me_ , couldn’t bear to live any longer?” By the time his tirade had ended, Rickards throat had gone hoarse, and he sounded petulant even to his own ears.

            Hjolmar looked at him bewildered, eyes wide with incredulity. Rickard felt shame at the outburst, but relief as well; and there was no small amount of satisfaction to seeing aloof, calculating Hjolmar Volkord at a loss for words. Rickard sat back down, resisting the conditioned urge to apologize. If nothing else, he would have this defiance.

            Hjolmar opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again before any words took shape. His stoicism softened, and his gaze spoke of one who wanted to understand Rickard’s fury, but could not. He looked like a man for whom sadness was foreign, trying to mime it for the benefit of a stricken friend.

            “When one hates another, _truly_ hates another with all of their being, there is only so long before that hatred bubbles out,” Hjolmar’s voice was tender, almost boyish. Rickard found it deeply unnerving, even as he wondered whether he or his mother had been the subject.

            “Very well,” Hjolmar said, his deep baritone restored. “I will tell you why I despised her so. I will tell you why she hated me so completely.”

           

**Hjolmar**

**2318**

Brennen’s crowning came and went without incident. The investigation into the death of Hellman Volkord was brief, with Renuald and the Lady Volkord both giving testimony of a man very troubled behind closed doors. Hjolmar discovered later that Lady Volkord’s long history of violence at the hands of her husband spawned a willing compliant in the assassination. While not directly involved, the court nobility held no great love for their late liege, and talk suggested they hoped for a bright future under the leadership of Atticus Brennen and his lady wife. To their apparent delight, the man set almost immediately upon loosening many of the Empire’s regulations regarding the activities of nobility, from hunting to taxation to the mandatory minimum donation to Sigmar’s church. It was amidst these lauded announcements that he quietly sandwiched Hjolmar’s elevation to military command, to which the soldiers reacted with exceptional negativity and the nobles for whom they fought reacted not at all. Hjolmar would be surprised if they had even noticed.

            With these changes came a manor house of more contemporary make, though Valka, Vidar, and the others preferred an abandoned farmstead outside the city walls, where they practiced and drank in a hall more akin to those ‘back home.’ Joric was the exception, as Hjolmar hoped he would be, and remained at court with his jarl. His frequent unexplained absences were less to Hjolmar’s liking, as was the waft of lavender that accompanied him whenever he did materialize. Such was but one of the many overbearing scents that mired the aristocracy, scents which somehow failed to cling to Hjolmar so vigorously.

            Lady Volkord had been allowed to stay at court in the absence of her husband, for they bore no children and her closest relatives lived across the sea, though she did little more than mill about and attempt to appear important, much like her peers.

            Hjolmar sought her out a week after the assassination. He asked if she worried about her position, if her late husband’s name could still be seen as threatening in the eyes of the Brennen’s.

            “As a woman,” she began, wafting especially strongly of that lavender scent that made Hjolmar’s gorge rise, “I am no threat, I am barely nobility. Perhaps `tis lucky we never managed to conceive a child.” Such was the extent of their interactions.

            And so things continued without incident, with nary a cause for Hjolmar to make use of his newfound position, until the day of 19 Nachgeheim, 2318. It was on this day that the elf arrived at court.

…

            E`thwe`miil was flanked by two warriors in mail of gold, their conical helmets and scaled coats gleaming as if in direct sunlight. Each carried an identical halberd, was dressed in identical armor, and as far as Hjolmar could tell, shared identical faces with each other and their escorted ambassador. E`thwe`miil himself wore immaculately brushed flaxen hair which cascaded picturesque down robes of intense purple.

            He bowed, a motion of such grace that it only superficially resembled those of lowland courtiers. When he stood again, he looked upon Brennen with eyes depthless in their age.

            “I have travelled from _mir’nilmi`ishyq_ , by command of my holy Phoenix-lord, called Caemil Quyl-Isha yn Aeskhaine, Gleaming Sabre of his Divine Justice, Flame Eternal within the Souls of Elves, Reluctant but Righteous Slayer of kin, his own father once called the Winged Lord, now called the Black King and Bearer of Death, composer of music unmatched in grace, author of poetry unmatched through time, to bear a message to you gracious lord, Lord Atticus Brennen of Hannesberg.” The elf’s speech was only superficially human, imbuing a gentle musicality into the Reikspiel Hjolmar was unaware the language could purvey.

            Brennen stared wide-eyed for a moment before responding. “He receives you,” his cadence now seeming woefully inept.

            The elf bowed his head once before continuing, the movement smooth and uncannily measured. “It is with sorrow that I convey this, a message of tidings dire for this town. The treacherous dwarf king of Mountain’s Fire, called Hror the Unyielding by his subjects, even now marches to war with your fief. Such was seen by our watchers in his walls, Hror did murder his forbear in cold blood, and now seeks to end ties with the Empire. Hannesberg is the martyr by bloodshed.”

            The words came songlike, a melody of angels bearing doom’s own hammer. Hjolmar watched the nobility’s fear spread in a wave of ghostly pallor. Here was the message many prayed would never come.

            Silence reigned for many minutes, until Brennen finally spoke. His voice was tremulous under a ragged veil of authority. “Why? Even if King Rik is dead, of which we have received no word, why would these dwarves make open war? Are they unaware they cannot stand against the might of the Empire? What cause could fuel this suicide?”

            E`thwe`miil adjusted his gaze fractionally, locking eyes with Hjolmar. The black pits of those eyes looked like tunnels with no end, like windows into the void. “The word that poisoned his lips was ‘vengeance.’” He turned his eyes back on Brennen. “Likely for the domination of lands, lands long held beneath boots of Dwarven rule.”

            _They know_ , Hjolmar thought. _These elves know what I’ve done. That they do not show it means that this diplomacy is a farce. They want this war._

He gave Renuald a sidelong glance. He was wearing the mask of concern with conviction, but Hjolmar could see boredom in his eyes, the look of a man told a joke long since novel.

            “Ehm, thank you for your message, Eithweemile. That said, do you bring proof of this mobilization? I do not doubt the ire of the dwarves, but announcing they march to war is quite the accusation.”

            “I regret to tell our lack of such things, but if you will hear the wise listen well: long have we lived as their neighbors and foes. With the dwarves war is inevitable, as surely as the sun rises each dawn.”

            “If I may, my lord,” Renuald began, waiting for Brennen’s nod before continuing. “The dwarvish people do have a long history of violence. Perhaps, regardless of the validity of these claims, it would be wise to prepare? If war does not come today, perhaps it will in a decade.”

            Brennen seemed to consider this, before nodding in assent. “Indeed. Thank you, ambassador, your warning, if true, is appreciated. We will have a room prepared for you if you wish to stay for a time.”

            “I extend our thanks for the kind offer, but I fear our sanctum calls to our hearts. We must return to our lord and duty, may we bring word of your friendship as well?”

            “Again, assuming your warning holds true, I am glad to extend the olive branch as it were.”

            E`thwe`miil gave a final bow before turning to leave with his attendants, their step uncannily light considering the apparent weight of their armor. When the chamber doors finally shut behind them, Brennen shifted on his throne. “Damned knife-ears. Only they could stand below me and still attempt to look down their noses.”

…

The court remained in a somewhat delayed uproar for several days. Hjolmar watched amused as the lords and ladies of Hannesberg suddenly seemed almost northman-like in their arguing styles. Curses were thrown along with the occasional fist, and the usually stifling etiquette often broke down in the face of shouting over one another.

            The juxtaposition was staggering, stepping from those immaculate halls into the squalor beyond, where the slaves milled about as if nothing were amiss. The chill autumn air did nothing to halt their activity beneath a still brilliant sun. Oblivious to the coming horror, farmers and merchants spun their rumors and banal observations as they did every day.

            As was also the norm, they had not yet learned to part before Hjolmar Vorkjal. He stomped pitiless through the unwashed throngs, indignation at their lack of fearful awe quelled by the satisfying snap of bone as the slow or infirmed failed to avoid his tread. Beyond a small sheath of those who observed such actions, none paid any mind to the agonized cries of their like. Oblivious indeed.

The city barracks managed to be poorly lit even beneath the afternoon sun. Its interior reminded Hjolmar of a northern alehouse, dark brown walls barely illuminated by torch and candlelight. It smelled little better.

            He entered without request, as was now his right, though today was the first time he exercised it. Those guards off duty stared up from tankard and dice alike, not one failing to deliver a withering look. It was a lengthy walk through this procession of ire before he reached their captain.

            Marcus Bennett was a dour man of noble birth, though whether the former was spawned from the latter Hjolmar could not say. Now scraping his forties, the man’s face was a gnarl of scar tissue, his beard long since run gray. To Hjolmar, he looked like one of his tribesmen in miniature, a fleeting respect dancing atop his thoughts.

            “What do you want?” was Bennett’s only greeting.

            “You were there when elves arrive, Captain. You know what comes, we should prepare.”

            “ _We_?” he said through a humorless chuckle. “I don’t need help from a savage, Vorkjal. I don’t know for certain how you came into Brennen’s good books, though I have a pretty good idea, but I ain’t bending my sore old knees to you.”

            _Oh no?_

“I would not ask for this thing, kneeling is an insult in old culture. Nor do I ask to be your leader, I am unwise in the ways of lowlander military, instead partnership is what I seek.”

            “Partnership? Aye, and what could you bring to this equation that I do not have already, besides perhaps the northerner stench?”

            Now here was a man worthy of the north. Even so, Hjolmar made a mental note to tear the man’s head off when circumstance allowed.

He feigned a laugh. “What of my men? Valka, too, is as much a war machine as the dwarf siege boxes.”

            “Maybe. But you are only twenty, Vorkjal, worse you are twenty infantrymen. No twenty infantrymen have ever won a war, no matter the size or ferocity of such men.”

            “You think I know nothing of war?” Hjolmar said, letting some of his frustration show.

            “I think you’re probably fine warriors, northman, but you aren’t soldiers. I’m not going to pretend you ever will be. Aye, I’ll let you and yours run about smashing dwarves into hairy paste, but only a soldier can command a soldier. You savages run at each other and chop `til one side is dead. I’ve fought your kind before, long before this Sven came running at our gates.”

            “What is your battle plan for dwarves, then?”

            Marcus gave a dry laugh. “It is more complex than your little arrow-scheme, which I’ve heard so much about. Of course we’ll be exploiting their inexperience at fighting on the surface. I’ve already had the boys ploughing up the fields into a ridge. Even then, did the knife-ear not say they’d fought the dwarves before? Elves like bows and open air, they must’ve forced some dwarves out of their holes. And if ever I learned anything of dwarves, it’s that they never forget.”

            “But we are not elves, are we?” Hjolmar asked, letting some of his real inflection surface for just that moment. “We don’t imitate frail knife-ears, nor do we imitate idiot dwarfs. ‘Savage’ or no, we are human. We are better.”

            “Spoken like a true patriot. Aye, we bring our own brand of war, but they’ve got machines like you’ve never seen. If you had, you’d not sound so confident. Some can even fly, great engines that depart the ground without wings at all. What have we? A pile of arrows and bolts and a few rifles for the cavalry. If we’re to hold them back, we’ve got to outsmart them.”

            Hjolmar nodded. “Agreed. What is your plan for this outsmarting?”

            “That’s what I’m trying to work out. And I’d probably have come up with something by now if you’d not interrupted me.”

            Hjolmar leaned over the man’s map before he’d finished speaking. It illustrated Hannesberg and its surrounding fields, several key locations circled or crossed out with harsh ink scribbles. He also noted eight serpentine walls hastily scrawled at the far edge. He decided these were the many tunnels the dwarves would emerge from.

            He turned back to Marcus, focusing his eyes and tightening his jaw to dispel the illusion of dull incompetence. The man’s eyes widened in recognition of the intelligence behind Hjolmar’s own.

            “I believe I have just the solution.”

 

**Ragarin**

**2318**

Little was recorded of the Norsca in the vast libraries of Mountainhearth. Rare was their invasion, as the Imperial lands to the south offered more lucrative plunder. Rarer still was detailed record of their coming, and so Ragarin’s efforts to translate their artful tongue often ended in disappointment.

            He had no love for such things, of course. It was not out of respect or interest he sought these foreign words, but for another shard of his piecemeal revenge. He had all but given up his search, the hour late on the eve of their trek, when he found a limited key of Norsca to Khazalid runic. The words on display were a smattering of the potential lexicon; some even obscured by what Ragarin assumed to be blood.

            Yet there they were. Those four words all but leapt from the page, and when he finally retired that night, their mantra dominated his ebbing thoughts.

…

The population of Hannesberg was roughly twelve-thousand, discounting the various farmers who toiled beyond its high stone walls. The last Imperial census, graciously received by Grobi Rik during his tenure, indicated that approximately nine-hundred of those citizens occupied a position in the guard and/or military.

            The halls of Mountainhearth were home to just over sixty-thousand dwarves. With a slightly higher rate of active military duty, the entirety of Ragarin’s army numbered at five-thousand, six-hundred and fifty-two. Of this force, he selected two-thousand soldiers to accompany him beneath Svarland’s grassy landscape to Hannesberg, planning total obliteration of not only their defenses, but of the city itself. The remainder of the army would stay behind in the event that the elves decided to attack in the mean. So too was the ambassador elf kept in a cell with her two guards as insurance until the war was ended.

            It was with this comparatively immense force, in tandem with near twice that number in serfs, cooks, engineers, and medics, that Ragarin Dreng departed Mountainhearth.

 

**Joric**

**2318**

            The day the fighting began, Joric awoke in a mansion. He did not appreciate the fine architecture, nor the way the morning light danced picturesque over the crumpled bed sheets in a soft orange glow. In truth there was little about this lowland culture that appealed to Joric as it did to Hjolmar. Yet he had grown a passion for the city of Hannesberg, not because of its art or architecture or populace, but rather a single person.

            Jane Volkord was not the Norscan ideal of beauty. Her hair was thin, her frame thinner. Childbirth would not come easy, and her waifish appearance would mean death mid-winter in the far north. She could not cook, and did not clean, for these were the duties of her servants. She could not even fight, earning respect if not appreciation for femininity. Yet somehow those wide, green eyes seemed more beautiful than any such criteria. Somehow that mane of blonde seemed infinitely more important than wide hips and thick arms.

            Somehow, the hurt they shared meant more than the language barrier between them. Hel, it even made up for the suffocating perfume.

            The exceptionally pleasant thought was interrupted by Jane’s retching into the chamber pot across the room. He looked up from the bed they’d shared, observing her convulsing over the iron bowl. Her usual complex hairstyles were nowhere to be seen, a tangled curtain of gold in its place. This thought too was dispelled by the sound of vomit impacting metal.

            She did, at the very least, possess a desire for alcohol on par with a northerner, if not the necessary stomach for it.

            Joric reflected that she must oft consider the same things of him. He had no comprehension of what lowlanders found attractive in each other, an issue confused further by the nobility’s wardrobe conventions. Joric decided her appreciation of his musculature demonstrated uncommon good sense in a lowlander; scars informed of battles won, and bulk meant utility in labor.

            Joric laid into the pillow at his back, arms crossed behind his head in a shallow stretch. He supposed his love of lowlander beds was something to consider as well, preferable in all ways to a cold bag of feathers or straw. Baths too he could learn to love, the scalding water a miraculous balm on the aches of now daily sparring matches. Hjolmar had been relentless in both insistence and mock savagery.

            He had fallen half asleep when Jane returned to his side, snaking her smooth arms over his muscular torso. Joric peered at her through one half-lidded eye, and formed a smile happily returned.

            Hours passed of not quite sleep as the two lay together. A light rapport on the chamber door bore Jane to her feet. She had a brief, irritated exchange with the servant beyond as she dressed, before opening the door a fraction to receive whatever message waited beyond.

            She gave the messenger a nod of dismissal before turning to Joric, her face waxing pale. She spoke two words, some of the few she had learned of Joric’s language in their time together. Though broken and incomplete, the message was clear.

            “Hjolmar wants.”

…

Joric’s armor had been bolstered by the lowlanders’ advanced craftsmanship, Jane funding the inclusion of ring mail to his furs and leathers. He had refused the offer of a new axe, as while Joric had no love for his immediate family, respect was owed to ones’ ancestors even in shame.

            The sky was curdling overhead, and manic wind funneled through Hannesberg’s busy streets. The peasantry, though still inconveniently numerous, had thinned noticeably. Joric observed desperate men and women hurrying to their homes, panic writ clear upon their faces. The war had finally come, Joric knew, and the world made no secret of it.

            He came to the gate as indicated, and found the rest of the Ghosts waiting as well. Valka stood a head taller than her peers, her blood-red hair dancing apart in the gathering storm. Hjolmar was yet absent.

            Vidar spoke first. “Good to see you Jor, feels like we haven’t spoken in years.”

            Joric smiled disinterestedly, finding the situation ill-suited for pleasantries. “Aye, sorry.”

            “Ah, don’t worry. I know you’ve been busying yourself with that lowland beauty of yours, no shame in that I suppose. `Tis our right after a raid, after all, though you’ve been unkind sparing us the details. Is it true what they say about willing lowlanders and their secret pleasures?”

            Joric’s smile slackened into a glower. Valka’s response was quicker than his own.

            “Shut up Vidar,” she growled, a surprising amount of venom on her words.

            Vidar threw up his hands placatingly. “Alright, apologies Jor.”

            Joric nodded but said nothing. He looked up at Valka, who gave him a wan smile. The violent energy that had once saturated her every movement seemed resurgent, but her smile was warped with recumbent sadness. Joric returned the gesture. When the war was done, he would see this cancerous divide undone.

            When Hjolmar appeared, the thought seemed distant and fantastical. No longer dressed in battered leathers and trophies of war, Hjolmar wore a suit of chain and cloth, plates of polished steel gleaming from wrists, shins, and chest. All that remained of his old attire was the crown upon his head, and the sweeping furs that flowed from his shoulders. The smallfolk parted before him, the action pulling from him a look of cruel satisfaction. An even line of soldiery marched at his back, the clatter of their armor near-synchronous beneath close lockstep. Joric felt his stomach lurch at the spectacle, not for the lowland garb or the line of soldiery, but for the man’s face. He had never looked so arrogant, not merely dismissive but contemptuous of those about him.

            He halted the line before the Ghosts, one hand on the pommel of his sword. He seemed not to notice the looks of obvious disgust radiating from his peers.

            “Finally remembered the rest of us, did you Hjol?” Vidar asked.

Joric held his breath. Hjolmar looked at the man as if trying to remember who he was. Then, he laughed, though Joric could no longer tell if the display was genuine. “Indeed. Apologies for making you all wait, I know I promised much in the ways of glory, and have delivered precious little. But now is the time for action.

            “And what will his mighty _highness_ have us do? Something transparent this time, I trust?” Vidar asked.

            Hjolmar’s face twitched, but remained jubilant.

            _He’s going to remember that_ , Joric thought.

            “You will be free to fight as you see fit, though I suggest you join the charge of the infantrymen. The exception is Joric, for whom I have a task of great import.”

            Vidar snorted, but the others appeared satisfied by the coming freedom. Joric wondered at the harbored anxiety at taking orders, judging by the visible display of relaxedness before the proclamation.

            “And,” Hjolmar began again, “when the battle is over, you will be lauded as heroes. If you wish to stay as I will, to take our place as battle-kings of Hannesberg, you are welcome. So too will you be allowed to go your own ways, if that is your wish.”

            Joric’s brow furrowed in concern. Hjolmar never allowed an asset to go its own way, even when he was done with it. Did he expect them all to die in the battle to come? Was he perhaps encouraging it, disguising a suicidal charge as freedom of choice?

            Joric shivered, and did his best to banish the thought. Hjolmar had changed, but had he not changed as well? Had Joric not also seen men as tools during his brief tenure of command? He was no closer to sending his own brethren to die. If he wanted them dead, he would do it himself, what honor was there in any alternative?

            “Before that, we muster at the gates. So come, my Ghosts of the North. Let us march to war

 

**Ragarin**

**2318**

The day the fighting began, Ragarin held council.

While the menials and soldiery assembled temporary dwellings and storehouses deep into the seven tunnel entrances broaching Hannesberg, the King of Mountainhearth convened with Hazkal Firebeard, Circle Captain Ong, and Okri. Before them was splayed the vellum map of the tower city’s allotted fief, various irregular rings indicating topography.

The task was a daunting one. The _Kol_ had been peerless warriors, but soldiers they were not. Only Hror possessed any precise military acumen, and the realm of tactics and strategy had never come naturally to Ragarin. So he let his advisors work, taking in the wealth of information and commenting only to ensure his vision remained intact.

He was, if nothing else, free of the worry of ambiguity. The tunnels had been sealed on their arrival, such that an imprecise excavation would result in small but potentially lethal cave-ins. That they were sealed at all was in violation of Rik’s treaties, but traps made the city’s allegiance all too clear.

When the meeting ended orders were given to the small armada of line couriers, Hazkal requested a private audience. Ragarin dismissed Ong and Okri with a nod, though he knew the first of the Circle would not stray further than the figurative doorstep.

“Speak freely, my general.”

“My king,” Hazkal began, despite the invitation. “You bear the slayer’s crest. This battle will mark the beginning of your exile in combat?”

Ragarin’s face hardened, he was growing tired of the inquiry. Instead of his usual affirmative, he asked “Do you doubt my honor, Hazkal?”

“No, my king.” His answer was clipped. “For a time I was glad to be rid of you, and yes, I doubted you would relinquish your position. But now,” he waved an upturned palm through the air, signaling the wider environment, “this army, this kingdom, rallies beneath your banner, behind the morals you espouse and the strengths you promise. What will such words mean when you do not return, when you reveal the doomed oath you took? You arrested the Rik’s royal lineage, only to end yours soon after. Who shall succeed you?”

Ragarin had not considered this. There had been no time, no room in his psyche to process such a decision. Who _would_ succeed him, when this had ended? He would not turn from Grimnir’s path; it was his only possible salvation. Who, then? Any of the old nobility would seek to undermine what little had already changed. Daal was decrepit; he would likely follow Ragarin into the soil in short order. Okri was almost ideal, but he had no experience, and little mind for the necessary aggressive politics. The warriors of the Circle were mindlessly loyal, and beyond that, oath-bound to serve whoever sat the Mountain Throne until death.

With so few candidates, it hardly seemed a choice at all.

“You will,” Ragarin answered.

Hazkal made no attempt to hide his shock. “Me? You hate me.”

“Just because I beat your face in doesn’t mean I hate you, Firebeard. True, you irritate me with belligerence when I would prefer obedience, but you act always in the interests of our people. Even if I did, my like of you is no factor in succession. You’re headstrong, bordering on reckless, and you look to the future instead of wallowing in the past. You sound a better ruler than the competition.”

Hazkal clearly had no idea how to respond, as his face seemed to war between surprise, fear, confusion, and joy all at once.

“Besides, at this point what choice do I have?” Ragarin added.

…

The dwarves had not always ruled Svarland. Not even the elves, timeless as they were, could boast control over the entire island during the height of their power. Before the coming of the _Dawi_ , the mountain range bisecting the land was home to the Mamot-boyz, a clan of orcs possessing a size rarely seen in those of the mainland. Their warboss, its name now lost to time, was reputed to have stood two-stories high even in its greenskin slouch. Holding one of the beast’s hollowed tusks, Ragarin could believe such tales.

            He pressed one end of the mace-sized tooth between his lips, and sounded the first note of Hannesberg’s funeral dirge. The chord was taken up by six further horns of more standard brass, the booming note echoing through the city’s vast fields.

            Upon their cessation, the war began.

…

            Hundreds of dwarves worked in unison to propel artillery up the shallow ridgeline. Columns poured from tunnel mouths, becoming tributaries that embraced the turret line in a protective wall of shield and pike. No sooner had the first rain of arrows descended on the morass, catching several soldiers unprepared. A hail of arrows fell upon the ridge in localized downpour.

            “Shield’s high!” Ragarin yelled, a demand echoed by his line commanders. A protracted clanking of metal heralded the raising of the shield wall into a shield ceiling, the following torrent splintering on steel and gromril. Ragarin could see dwarves dying still, those who could not raise their shields in time, many already hindered by protruding shafts.

            “Fire!” he roared. The semi-unified crack of cannon fire heralded the first volley unleashed on Hannesberg’s walls. Stone cracked and blew apart, wood scattered into lethal splinters. It looked to Ragarin like a patina of dust had been blown from the city in a strong wind, the first jostling of a trinket unused to handling.

            The myriad cannon blasts sounded again, Ragarin’s commanders adopting metronomic firing orders. His focus shifted to the swarm of horsemen breaking free of the city walls. The armored soldiery was clad in gaudy plumage, primitive firearms lancing proudly before them. Behind charged a small gaggle of Norsca, their long legs propelling them with near-inhuman speed. Their warcry, though faint, briefly penetrated the cannon’s own. Last were the infantrymen, who struggled to keep pace with their larger cousins.

            A sudden crack of thunder heralded the sky’s expeditious blackening. Thick, pregnant clouds rolled forward like a wave, mirroring the advance of the riders far below.

            _Sorcery_ , Ragarin thought with an involuntary sneer. No matter, it would not save them. The riders were too few, and charged toward waiting barrels.

            He raised _Uzkul_ ’s head to the enemy lines. His commanders relayed the soundless order, and the barrels of cannons, rifles, and organ guns leveled with the knights of Hannesberg.

 

**Hjolmar**

**2318**

The day the fighting began, Hjolmar was ready. He had convened many times over the past week with Captain Marcus and his officers, forming battle plans for the worst possible scenarios. The tunnels to the below-ground were stormed and collapsed, though they held no illusions such a thing would halt the Dwarven approach, and scouts were deployed to the surrounding areas to track those of the enemy. One dwarf was brought back in pieces, though Hjolmar could only guess at the number still observing and reporting from afar.

            The miners, too, occupied Hjolmar’s thoughts with frequency. He was not worried of their safety, beyond a sort of utilitarian concern, but of their speed. If they did not complete their task on time, the city would not survive.

            When the blare of war horns crested the distant ridgeline, Hjolmar felt something akin to relief. Here was the end of things, of these damned squats and of the false diplomacy that they necessitated. When this was over, Hjolmar doubted Renuald or his lord would remain so accommodating, a sentiment he planned on returning. Neither lord would win the loyalty Hjolmar would today while tucked safely in that ivory tower.

            He would show these people, be they soldiers at his back or slaves cowering behind stone walls, that his was the leadership they needed. Beneath him they would not merely survive, they would _flourish_.

            The archers had their orders and Captain Bennett to command them. He had no doubt a lethal rain would meet the approaching army precisely on time, at the very moment they crested the distant hill that had been so meticulously raised and sheeted with grass.

            He turned his horse, a powerful but still mildly undersized beast, to the soldiers at his back.

            _“Now is the time to show these squats the might of the empire! Ride with me, and we will send these godless bastards back to the pits they crawled from!”_ He turned to Joric, mounted on a horse of his own, a sizeable force of pikemen behind him _. “To Joric, and you brave souls who held against Sven the Turncoat’s assault, I leave the gates. The safety of the people behind these walls is in your hands. Let no one pass your indomitable line.”_

            The pikemen stamped wooden hafts against the earthen floor, while Joric looked on in puzzled confusion.

            Hjolmar lowered his voice, letting amiability replace charisma. “I would trust no other to lead the defense of the city gate, Joric. These men are yours.” It was a concerted effort not to trail off as the color drained from Joric’s face. The muscles in his jaw bulged from pocked flesh, and his eyes widened in frustration. “If these gates fall, this will all have been for nothing.”

            As one, the first deafening shots rang out from the enemy line as Joric’s mouth flared wide in protest. Clouds of debris burst from the city walls and tower alike, and one of Hjolmar’s unit was blown to pieces by a rogue cannonball. The man’s horse squealed and reared before fleeing, two severed legs dangling from their stirrups.

            Hjolmar thought this as good a signal as any to lead his forces to war. _“To me!”_ He roared, stealing what little time he could before the next salvo, be it one of lead or words. He did not look back.

            _Better livid than dead_ , he assured himself.

            The cavalry charged north from the gates, half the force splitting off to distract the enemy cannons. Those who remained, Hjolmar at their head, circled the city walls, their horses galloping within arm’s reach of the uneven stone bulwark. Another thunderous rapport signaled the following salvo, and a storm of gravel buffeted their wayward assault.

            The riders broke from the city walls, stampeding across open field’s to the city’s south west. A gaping maw stared from the oncoming foothills, the only surface indication of two weeks’ back-breaking labor.

            Hjolmar dismounted his horse at the cave mouth before leading the animal into black depths. Those who followed did the same, and descended four abreast into the ill-lit passage. Struggling torches burned in the darkness, and Hjolmar inspected each support beam they passed beneath. A cave-in now would condemn their party as well as the city.

            They followed the winding tunnel for close half an hour, the muffled echoes of the battle thundering above. A steady rain of dust had frosted their mail when they finally reached the miners, who now collected their tools some fifty meters from the exit.

            A bent-backed man looked up at Hjolmar, his eyes forced into a wrinkled squint.

            “We’s pulled back from the mouth, me lords. A party of Dwarfs came down a while ago. They’re stepping slow, wary I think. We backed away though, they’ve arms and armor. Apologies, but I fear pickaxes may not do the job.”

            ‘No, I fear not. Good work, ehm, _miner_. The gates will be shut, I suggest you all migrate into the foothills until the battle is done. It won’t be safe for you down here, either.”

            The man bowed, somehow bending even further in half, and began to relay the command to his fellows.

The cave grew taller ahead as indicated weeks before, more than enough to reseat their mounts. The tunnel grew dark, torches no doubt snuffed to arrest the dwarven advance. No matter, the path was near straight from here, a steady incline to the surface. Once mounted, Hjolmar drew his sword; the polished steel gleamed briefly in darkness. It too had found life in the weeks prior, the blacksmith promising superior balance for one of his stature.

 It felt good in his hands, something he was more than relieved for. Training had been unforgiving; the weakness that once consumed him utterly clinging still, like a dying man to his own innards. Mounted though, all one needed was timing. Momentum would do the rest.

…

When Hjolmar burst from the cave mouth, his sword was already wet with blood. The thunder of hooves overscored bursts of cannon fire, and Hjolmar screamed his threat as the riders bore into dwarven lines. From the southmost flank they rode, approaching too quickly for the amassed cannons to rotate in answer.

            While Hjolmar’s speed and strength were diminished, his precision had not suffered in the slightest. His first prize that day was earned with effortless decapitation.

            Rifle fire erupted from both parties, plumes of smoke signaling the sudden perforation of warrior and beast alike. Hjolmar leaned into his mount, striking head and limb from those he passed by. The wedge of cavalry punched through the line like a dagger through silk, the total absence of mounted resistance made for easy reaping once inside the cannon’s guard.

            Hjolmar scanned the lines even as he shore through them, searching for some indicator of leadership. He had no illusions the dwarves’ offensive would break with the death of their monarch, but there was no better agent of disorder than assassination.

            His mare suddenly fell out from under him as a scale-clad dwarf cleaved away its front legs. Hjolmar rolled from the horse, his feet unhindered by stirrups as was the northerner way. The beast tumbled through thick mud, sending a brief wave of detritus between Hjolmar and his opponent.

            The dwarf snarled something unintelligible at him, though Hjolmar was more interested in his open-faced helm, irate features and tremendous beard on full display. Hjolmar stabbed him through the eye-socket, aborting a strike that would have seen him legless.

            Two further dwarves fell before another mount, its rider bouncing limply in the saddle, ran by in panicked flight. Hjolmar grabbed the reins, tore the man, and incidentally, his boots, free. He vaulted onto the creature’s back, sabatons digging hard into the beast’s flank. It gave a whinny of protest at Hjolmar’s unexpected weight, but another quick jab of his heels sent the duo headlong into the disarray of battle.

           

**Joric**

**2318**

Joric wanted to strangle someone. Mostly, he wanted to strangle Hjolmar. He would sooner find sport in killing his fellow soldiers than stand idly in front of a gate while cannonballs occasionally showered him in grit. He turned to Rolfe, who had been selected for this duty as well. Joric assumed gatekeeping the man’s permanent role, and wondered if his earlier impression had been too generous.

            Whatever suspicions Joric harbored before were all but confirmed now. Hjolmar was keeping him from the fight, for what reason he could only guess at. A thirst for glory? It seemed likely enough, though Hjolmar wasn’t so stupid as to keep useful warriors apart from the war at large. A fear for Joric’s well-being? Far less likely, Joric had proven himself Hjolmar’s equal in the battle against Sven. Perhaps it was madness, Kel’s final insult in death. Joric suddenly felt rather foolish for dismissing Valka’s concerns.

            Well, no such madness would keep him from this. He pointed at the enemy, imitating the Reikspiel he’d heard repeated several times that day.

            “Charge.”

            Rolfe shook his head, his eyes full of confusion.

            _Right_ , Joric thought _. Lowlanders and their orders_.

            He spat at the man’s feet, and yanked a tower shield from the grip of an especially nervous looking soldier nearby.

            Joric lowered his head and ran, shield raised to the fore. He prayed to the four that killing the clan vitki had earned him no ill fortune. He ran, teeth tightened into a painful vice, half-expecting a well-placed cannonball to lethally acquaint him with the shield’s inner wall. A gunshot flew by his lowered head, not from the enemy line, but from behind him. He turned, not slowing, to see Rolfe and nine others in pursuit, firing what little they had at the enemy, their own shields raised high.

            Joric laughed back at them, hoping the palpable joy he felt might be expressed in a way words could not. True, ten out of hundreds was no great force, but it was more than enough to drag glory from the coming storm.

            Three of his new, nameless companions fell before they reached enemy ridge, their shields coming apart under enemy fire. Joric’s own appeared little better, two musket balls and the occasional splinter wedged shallow into his forearm. He fractionally tilted the wooden barrier and saw a dwarf directly ahead, rifle poised to fire.

            _This_ , Joric thought, _is for the first of our fallen_.

            He let the shield fall, gripped the bottom with both hands, and rung the dwarf’s head like a bell. The brief delay earned the dwarf an axe to the neck.

…

Joric was caked in blood and sweat, the former only partially his own, by the time the last of his retinue fell. It was not Rolfe, as he had hoped, though the lowlander had managed to stick a dagger into his killer’s eye even after losing an arm.

            _A surprise right until the end_ , Joric thought.

            This last man, a portly fellow who nevertheless seemed well-versed in swordplay, fought back to back with Joric for several minutes before a stray bullet splattered his neck across Joric’s tattered furs.

            Joric fought on without pause. He took several bullets and bled from myriad wounds in his arms, legs, and torso. Another shot grazed his cheek, adding an ugly cross-hatch to the already scarred countenance. There was no sign of Hjolmar or Valka, though the latter’s bellows of rage occasionally pierced the din of battle. Thunder roared overhead, and incandescent lightning infrequently obliterated nearby skirmishes

His battle rage took him for a time, sounds and thoughts becoming distant in equal measure. Wounds were pinpricks, and blood was a pleasant rain on his bruised flesh. When the fury dissolved he was surrounded, though each of the enemy kept a sizeable distance between themselves and Joric. Their weapons were thrust before them, kennel masters holding a violent cur at bay.

            Joric smiled through bloody teeth. “What’s the matter? Are all dwarves so spineless?” He laughed, knowing none could understand him. He spread his arms wide, in invitation of a challenger. It was an effort not to topple backwards, and fatigue warred with adrenaline in his numbing limbs. The circle parted as if in response to produce a warrior clad in black, an ornate war hammer held firmly in one hand. His plate was beautiful, a stunning infusion of ornamentation and utilitarianism. A lightless wedge of a helm regarded him with cold menace.

            Joric had seen this warrior before. It was Hror, leader of the ill-fated strike on their occupation of Urbaz. Joric raised a questioning eyebrow. He had seen Hror die, watched his head tumble from lifeless shoulders. Was this their new general? Was such plate a uniform rather than a laurel? 

            The ghost of Hror bent his knees, but spread his legs only fractionally. He held the war hammer low, its most lethal end poised to strike. Then he froze, like a statue of polished obsidian. Joric descended into a half squat, legs parted for support. He wondered what fighting style this was supposed to be. The surrounding enemies looked on, weapons still outstretched.

            Joric smiled. Very well, perhaps such a duel might spare him from drowning in fodder.

            Joric gave a shallow hop, closing the distance by inches. The dwarf did not react. He paced forward, longer steps now, until just outside either weapon range. Joric swung sidelong, feeling his muscles protest against the speed he attempted. He let the weapon slip to one hand, doubling its kill range. An obsidian arm smashed the blow downwards and aside, the smile of Joric’s axe scraping away a thin layer of sparks. The dwarf grabbed his hammer two-handed for a similar counterblow. Joric leapt backwards, nearly losing his balance. The ornate head passed through empty air.

            Instead of pressing the advantage, the dwarf retook his stance. He was probing, by Joric’s guess, not so arrogant to think any and all would fall before him. Caution, by Joric’s evaluation, was only useful if shared by the opponent. He would not breed patterns for the dwarf to exploit.

            He swung overhead, letting his fingers slip again to the weapon’s base. The dwarf sidestepped, only enough to see the blade deflect harmlessly from steep plate. Joric stepped after his blow, pulling back his weapon into a block. He barely caught the retaliatory strike, and the force of it about sent him off his feet. Spinning his hammer like a baton, the dwarf passed it to the opposite hand and thrust savage its heavy pommel.

            There was nowhere to move, not quickly enough. Joric pistoned the butt of his axe into the warrior’s face, but a dull metal thud was the only reward for his efforts. The small mace pushed deep into exposed ribs. Joric buckled sideways, all air punched from his lungs. The dwarf did not let him fall, instead thrusting his hammer again into Joric’s chest. A wet crack signaled the collapse of his sternum, and he hit the ground shoulders-first.

            Joric wheezed hiking breaths, trying to distance himself from the advancing dwarf. He could feel liquid warmth spreading beneath his skin, and every movement drove spurs of bone deeper into the surrounding tissue. Blood welled in his throat, a viscous crimson sputtering from gritted teeth.

            He felt the ground slant beneath him, a sudden vertigo rising from shallow slope. Joric was dimly aware of the onlookers, weapons still outstretched in anticipation of his flight. The black-armored dwarf stepped closer, Joric’s swimming vision stretching him to a monstrous size. He looked almost ethereal silhouetted against the roiling sky, and in that moment Joric was certain that Hror had returned after all, a draug come to wreak terrible vengeance on his killers.

            Hror bent low, a clumsy movement that telegraphed near debilitating pain. The juddering descent banished any illusions of undeath from Joric’s mind.

_He is flesh, he can be killed._

Joric’s hand shot for the knife at his belt. Pain screamed in his chest as he pulled it free. Joric thrust the thin blade at the seam between helm and gorget. The lethal tip found only a mailed palm, pushing just deep enough to draw blood. The plated hand curled around the blade, trembling fingers rattling the mail beneath, and yanked it from Joric’s grasp.

            The opposite hand grabbed Joric’s neck, steel fingers pushing deep enough to draw blood. Joric gasped for air as Hror slowly shook his head. He reversed the knife in his grip, and plunged it to the hilt into Joric’s stomach. He sputtered, hands reaching to claw fruitlessly at the dwarf’s pitch armor. The plough helm looked up to gauge his reaction, head tilting to one side like an elk gazing stupidly at an approaching hunter. He retracted the knife, just enough for the point to clear the bloody wound, before plunging it in again.

            Joric gasped in pain as the dwarf perforated his stomach, slicing in and out, in and out, a hailstorm of dagger teeth biting deep into already savaged flesh. When he finally threw the knife aside, both the dwarf’s gauntlet and Joric’s jerkin were a shiny, liquid crimson. He leaned in again, closer this time. Joric heard a thin whisper escape the faceless helm, a voice that carried joy, fury, and pain in equal measure.

            “Tell Hjolmar,” he began. Joric’s eyes widened at the clumsy Norscan that dripped bilious from hidden lips. The armored head turned upwards, looking to something beyond their immediate sphere. “I am _Vengeance_.”

            The dwarf stood, flicked the blood from his gauntlet at Joric’s face, and pushed him bodily into a roll. Joric grunted as somehow further pain shot through his side as he tumbled the shallow incline. The circle of enemies parted, and he descended clumsily down the ridge, a stray rock pitching him into a head over heels plunge to the corpse field below.

            When his descent finally arrested, black fog was crawling from the edge of his vision, ever growing in its hunger for sight. Joric hacked up another gob of bloody phlegm, painting his chin and nose with dripping gore. He tried to right himself, to crawl back to the city and to Jane, but his wounds held fast.

            His vision swam with tears, though not from the physical torment. He thought of her golden hair, the feeling of her touch. He tried to call to mind that safety, that unique solidarity he felt when they became one, the heat between her legs warming him in a way no hearth could. Yet he could feel nothing but the chill wind and tepid, sick embrace of his own blood.

            Someone leaned down next to him. Golden hair fell across his brow, and a blurred face stared pleading from beneath that heavy mane.

            _You came_ , he thought.

            And the world blackened.

 

**Hjolmar**

**2318**

Hjolmar saw Joric fall. He was distant, a tide of dwarves between them, but he saw Joric fall. He saw a ghost, Hror’s wight, plunge a dagger repeatedly into Joric’s gut, and on that final plunge his black helmet stared right through him. That gaze was held as he kicked Joric to the killing fields below.

            Hjolmar screamed. He screamed anguish and fury and confusion, and he whipped his horse’s reigns and he mashed his heels into his horse’s sides and he charged headlong into the fray before him, trampling man and dwarf alike. He cared not for the gunfire that ruined his armor and minced his flesh, or the shallow cuts that mired his legs as passing enemies swung petty, reaching blows. The pain was not real. Only Joric was real.

            He reared his horse and leapt from the saddle, bloodied sword in hand. A dwarf stepped between the two Norsca, and swung mace at Hjolmar’s forward knee. He leapt at the dwarf, his leg knocked painfully to the side but otherwise unharmed, and barreled them both to the earthy floor. He screamed again as he thrust his sword into the warrior’s neck.

            He stood, and ran. Joric’s left hand was resting light over his stomach wound, blood welling from eleven tiny slits in his jerkin. He stared at the roiling heavens, eyes wide with shock. Hjolmar leaned over him, pressing his palms hard into the wound. He felt Joric’s bones grinding broken against each other as he pushed, and warm vitae swelled up between his fingers.

            His mind was blank, a feeling so alien it sent him into shuddering convulsion. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t move. Indecision was foreign, anathema. He stared at Joric, his ice-blue eyes staring skyward, his pupils twitching in an attempt to focus. His eyelids lulled, slowly gaining ground over those glassy pools. Hjolmar felt tears staining his cheeks, salty drops falling from his chin onto his bloody knuckles.

            Hjolmar looked up. He could feel Joric’s breath, feel his blood pumping slowly into desperate hands. His life was slowing, waning, but present. The wight was still looking at him, its war hammer clutched tight in one gauntlet. His soldiery fanned to either side like great wings, but seemed ignorant of their master’s focus. Its arms rose from its sides, inviting Hjolmar’s approach.

              **Kill him!** The battlefield screamed. **Give me your love, and kill him! I can give you the strength!**

His blood was fire. Indecision became certainty, despair let slip its hold and murder took its place. He could almost taste the satisfaction of ending the ghost of Hror, and it warred with the hope that Joric might still be saved. The thought seemed naïve, fruitless, the ruination of this chance at assured vengeance. Hjolmar shuddered, spit flecking his lips and tears still running wet from squinting eyes. It was as if all the fibers of his being erupted into civil war, his very self torn between courses of action.

            **Kill him!** A nearby lightning bolt blasted would-be attackers into charred heaps, and its shriek spoke the words. He felt Joric’s breath slowing beneath his palms. **Kill him!** Hjolmar was no longer sure who was to be killed. His course though, that was sure.

            He heaved Joric upwards, wincing as he felt bones splinter under his grasp, and draped him over the back of the panicked horse. He hoisted into the saddle, and felt the animal shudder in protest of the excess weight. He looked back to the wight, who seemed to wait for Hjolmar’s flight to begin; to be sure he would not meet him in battle.

            _Not today_ , Hjolmar thought. _But I will have you._

He kicked into the horse and fled; a volley of gunfire erupting from behind at the moment of flight. The horse whined as stray shots grazed its flanks, and Hjolmar felt a bullet dig deep into his shoulder. He zigzagged through the shallow wave of fighting, pushing away the rational as he sped through the murderous horde.

            He had nearly broken into Hannesberg’s planar fields when two shots took his horse in the throat. Hjolmer twisted in the saddle even as he fell, vaulting both passengers onto their backs in desperate effort to avoid pulverization beneath the flailing animal. Hjolmar rolled sidelong into the dirt, a stray rock finding agonized purchase in the wound of his shoulder. He pushed himself over, limbs protesting as he leapt into a crawling sprint.

            Bullets sent geysers of dirt into the acrid air as he ran, blood pounding in his ears. Joric was still breathing, but it was something beyond shallow. Hjolmar tried to lift him, succeeding only in a ponderous drag. Joric’s furs seemed waterlogged with blood.

            A roar of fury broke Hjolmar’s desperate concentration, and he looked up in time to see two stumpy legs fly spinning from distant combat. Valka burst through the enemy line, Vidar close behind. Near wholly red, cresting rainfall carved thin rivulets into her ichorous coating. She ran to Hjolmar and Joric, her gaze fixing wide-eyed on the latter.

            “Is he alive?” she asked, her words slurring beneath an angry fugue.

            Hjolmar tried to speak, but nothing came out. He closed his mouth in a half-grimace and nodded.

            Vidar looked on solemnly. “We’ll not get him back in time. Even if we could, we’ll be torn to pieces out there.” He gestured at the killing fields before them, innumerable corpses lying in the bullet-pocked mud.

            Hjolmar’s grimace widened, and all at once his voice seemed to return. “Valka, you’re stronger than I am. I need you to carry him back.” Hjolmar had not forgotten his distrust of the woman, but perhaps her loyalty to Joric was sound enough. He winced at his own desperate rationalizations, but felt he had little choice.

            “I’ll carry a shield to cover our backs, and-

            **Kill them; they are vulnerable in their concern**

 **-** cut down any who pursue on foot. Vidar, I need you back in the fight to cover our retreat.” Hjolmar could no longer think of any subtle push for the demand. He needed something from Vidar more than ever, and could scarcely articulate it as anything beyond an order.

            Vidar’s look soured from sympathy to belligerence. His mustache, now drooping in the rain, dangled limply over bared teeth.

            “That’s suicide. Glory in death is for ones’ _own_ wants. We’re given our freedom of you. I won’t die for this futility.”

            Valka spoke before Hjolmar could reply. She stood straight, the rain peeling the blood from her face like a spreading flower. She adopted a tenderness Hjolmar had never seen her wear.

            “Please Vidar. You are strong, you will survive. But we must help Joric.”

            Vidar’s face slackened in horrified surprise. “What? But I- am I not your lover? He has spurned your friendship over and over again!” Vidar jabbed an accusing finger at Hjolmar. “I know Joric is your friend, but let him go to the gods! He’ll die in your hands before you reach that damned city! I’ve been here for you, have I not? Am I not owed consideration?”

            “You have. And you are.”

            Valka’s arm moved so quickly Hjolmar barely processed its travel. Vidar screamed as Valka’s fist struck the side of his knee, bending his leg inward by degrees. Hjolmar heard a loud crack pierce fury of storm and battle alike. Vidar gasped for air, planting his sword at his feet for balance.

            Valka calmly approached Joric, and slung him over thick shoulders. “Goodbye Vidar, may you find glorious death.”

            Hjolmar watched him as they quit the battlefield, concentrated fire vibrating the shield in his hands. Vidar tried to follow them for a time, his screams lost beneath the roar of thunder, and his progress all but nonexistent beneath the newly earned limp. Even so, he fought well before the end.

…

He watched as the men costumed as birds attended to Joric, stitching his stomach and smearing his flesh with salves and ‘healing perfumes.’ There was blood everywhere, Joric’s precious life flowing from his wounds in slow, glistening rivers. It stained the sheets, it stained his armor, and it stained the hands of these bird-men as they worked, as if grasping onto anything which may carry it away from where it belonged.

            “He abandoned his post,” Marcus had all but screamed. “You told me he was reliable. Forty-one peasants are dead because of that abandoned gate. You’re beyond lucky there weren’t more!”

            Hjolmar had been too numb to rebuke the man. He supposed he should have killed him.

Accumulated rainwater still dripped from hands and hair onto the chamber floor, where it slowly rolled into the iron grating beneath each of the operating tables. Instruments and ingredients of exotic disposition crowded the walls, ceilings, and tables, interspersed only rarely with the hammer of Sigmar. These fetishes were occasionally jostled by the siege thundering overhead. A burly priest bent over the gurney, clutching his twin-tailed pendant and muttering prayer in guttural Reikspiel.

_Where now is the value of the Blood God, while Joric dies on a slab of granite?_

**The Blood God helps not the weak.**

Hjolmar punched one of the walls with such force that a rain of herbs sloughed from their hangings and onto his back. The bird men looked to him in near unison, each giving a startled jump at the sudden violence. He could not stay here, every glance at their bloody hands birthed fresh thoughts of murder.

Valka regarded him as he stood, a pleading look in her eyes. Tears had carved uneven paths through her mask of blood. Hjolmar sneered, suddenly embarrassed of his undisguised concern.

“Sit here and weep, then. I hadn’t expected such weakness from you.”

Whatever calm had possessed Valka for so many days seemed to dissolve. “I killed my bedmate for Joric, and for you.” Her low pitch wavered, as if struggling to keep from cracking. “Have I not earned back your trust?”

Hjolmar shut his eyes and let out a long breath. It was an effort to relax his own face. He forced his lips into a reassuring smile, and hoped the lingering irritation would complete the illusion rather than break it.

“I’ve been petty, Valka. I should never have doubted your loyalty. I-“

“Thanks, Hjol. We’re fine.” 

Hjolmar felt genuine glee at the interruption, and the sad smile she wore to match his own. For all her occasional sobering insight, the woman was remarkably gullible. He’d scarcely expected her to latch onto such a weak performance.

“Now, how do we fix Joric?”

“That I aim to discover shortly. Keep an eye on these bird men for now; pull their heads off if they try anything.”

Already the act was straining, anger and grief threatening to overtake his reconciliatory tone at any moment. He turned and strode from the little room, his face contorted into a snarl by the time he was through the door.

…

Hjolmar all but threw the book onto his bed. He hunched over the thing, fanning the pages as he turned, skimmed, and turned again. The book ceased to offer new information, and even now began to duplicate its messages. It told of a soul’s passage between hosts. It told of a daemonic possession and its ravaging effects on the body. It told of a soul’s passage between hosts.

            On and on he searched, nearly tearing pages free as he skipped forward and back by hundreds, yet over and over again the same pages were his only answer. It seemed to mock him in its repetition. It seemed to say “if only he were pious, that his soul may have been saved.”

            **Look not to a book for vengeance. Such is the domain of the Blood God.**

“Then what shall I do?” he screamed at the wall, his flickering shadow the only reply.

            **Cease your yammering. Your weakness sickens me, even as I see such great slaughter writ upon your destiny. Your potential must be seized; I can give you this war.**

            “How?” he asked the voice of distant cannon fire. Thoughts of Joric’s survival seemed to flee, the practicality of indirect preservation by means of victory sliding into their place. “What do you need?”

            **First** , the voice intoned with something bordering excitement, **A hated sacrifice.**

…

Renuald’s solar was tumultuous, the slate clouds overhead roiled in their periodic assault. Standing juxtapose, Renuald was the image of calm. Hjolmar’s arrival failed to pull anything from that serene countenance. He turned, fingers intertwined as if he were on a stroll through to tower gardens.

            “Hjolmar,” he began, his voice a gentle breeze. “My condolences for your friend.”

            “He’s not dead yet,” Hjolmar replied, with more desperation than intended. “I’ve known him many winters, he’s survived worse.”

            Renuald’s mouth mimed a reassuring smile, “Of course.” His soft tone smacked of doubt. “Of course,” he repeated, “you northerners are a hardy bunch. I’m sure you’ll return from the field to find him demanding a sword be thrust back into his hand.”

            “The field of battle is lost. We have exhausted our surprise advantage. We’ve suffered fewer casualties, but their machines are quick to repair. Even discounting their cannons, we are outnumbered.”

            Renuald chuckled in amusement, like a tutor surprised by his dull student’s nonsense answer. “You don’t suggest we resort to a siege? Our advantage is all but lost if we do so, the dwarves will have our walls down in days. There is only so much my lightning can do.”

            Hjolmar’s immediate response was cut off by a loud _boom_ , and the mildest juddering in the soles of his boots. A lucky hit on the tower, likely near the apex.

            “Answer me something,” Hjolmar said after a moment, wondering if the direct hits would become a pattern. He approached Renuald’s bookshelf, and ran a finger across the spine of a particularly dusty tome. “How accurate is your control of the lightning? I was nearly struck riding into their lines.”

            Renuald raised his hands placatingly. “Hah, apologies, jarl. The weather is a powerful thing; it can be coerced, but I hardly control it as you control your sword arm. I can have the lightning strike out against their artillery, tall metal objects attract it you see, but I lack especially time-sensitive contro-“

            _Boom._

            “I am aware how lightning works, _vitki_. Their artillery line was, what, ten kilometers long? And yet the length of our charge, which could hardly have been more than two, saw me nearly hit several times.”

            “There is hardly a pattern to nature, Jarl Hjolmar. Simple unfortunate chance, I would say. Your standards, perhaps, drew the occasional wayward strike.”

            Hjolmar moved further down the length of the shelf, tapping dry red fingertips across the names of ballads and textbooks alike.

            _Boom._

“Why, then, was I not warned beforehand?” Hjolmar turned from the bookshelf, stepping pointedly toward the vitki.

            “I tried,” Renuald replied without a hint of panic. “I admit it slipped my mind amidst the initial panic, but I sent a runner as soon as I was able. He must have arrived too late.”

            Hjolmar took another step.

            Renuald raised his hand again, now a gesture of command rather than placation. “Calm yourself, jarl. We are not children, wailing at each other over imaginary slights.” Thunder boomed in the clouds overhead, as much a warning as admittance that the vitki exercised more control than he let on. “Don’t prove all the bad those at court assume of-“

            _Boom._

“Are you threatening me, vitki?”

            “Perhaps I am. I suppose I should have foreseen this, violence is the only language you people speak, after all. Let us then be plain, though do not forget that I tried to be accommodating. If you think to threaten me, you’ll be splattered across the walls in short order, an ignoble end for the ever ambitious Hjolmar Vorkjal. But I suppose you might consider that a worthy death, as if there were such thing. Shall we compound that with a knife over your precious Joric as well.”

            _Boom._

“Oh yes, don’t think I haven’t noticed how you look at him. Perhaps those longing glances are what pass for subtlety in whatever rock you crawled from, but I know better. I also know the doctors attending him well, well enough that word from me will have his throat slit even before he can bleed to death himself.”

            Hjolmar remained silent.

            Renuald smiled the same empty crescent worn toward friend and foe alike. “I see I have been understood. Now, you are not untalented, jarl. Return to your men, lead them valiantly, die valiantly if that is your wish, and take your precious vengeance out upon these squat aggressors. Perhaps then I will allow you and your kind to leave in peace, to roam as you will far and away from my city.”

            _Boom._

 _“Violence?”_ Hjolmar all but whispered.

            “What?” the sorcerer asked flatly.

            _“Our only language is violence? We children of the north are simply a gaggle of dullards, useful in a fight but otherwise more beast than man, yes?”_

Renuald seemed to notice belatedly the shift to Reikspiel, no longer the broken mummery Hjolmar affected prior. The first light of uncertainty wormed across his face.

_“Maybe you’re right, though. I confess that I desire little more than violence at the moment. I cannot even claim that this is retaliation, some preemptive strike against you for the inevitable betrayal, or for the threats against Joric’s person. It-“_

A bolt of lightning burst from the clouds, a great spear of white lancing toward the spikes atop Hjolmar’s brow. At the last instance the lightning curved, a white-hot bolt arching through the room, blackening Renuald’s floating desk and setting his books alight. There was a loud popping sound as the wizard’s hand blew apart, blackened flesh spinning through the air like scattering crows. Renuald screamed as he doubled over, clutching his smoking palm and cracked, charcoal skin.

 _“Wh-,”_ he sputtered, saliva trickling from slack lips. _“What?”_

When he looked up in confusion, Hjolmar was already upon him.

_Boom._

_“It is because your death is a tool,”_ he finished, clutching the vitki’s azure robes and dragging him to the wyrd mirror at the room’s far end. Thunder roared impotent as he pulled the sorcerer across polished marble floor, storm winds buffeting him as uselessly as the man’s frail, clawing hands.

 _“And because I am_ angry _.”_

He shoved Renuald into the edge of the pool with a crack, the mirror surface fragmented into rippling waves. He wheezed as Hjolmar grabbed his frail neck with one hand before bending him backwards into the shallow bowl, twisting his head sideways to submerge nose and mouth.

The man flailed like wheat in a hurricane, fists and knees deflecting uselessly off Hjolmar’s armored form. Hjolmar placed his other hand around the man’s neck and leaned forwards, hunching over his drowning victim. He felt a rictus of excitement tear open his face, and his teeth were clenched in something like pleasure.

_Boom._

Hjolmar released the man’s crushed neck long after he was dead, and Renuald Louis fell limply to the floor with a wet thwack, the sound a fish dropped onto wooden decking. Water dribbled slow from tiny cracks in the plinth, echoes of the violent struggle.

Hjolmar stared down at Renuald’s pale corpse, suddenly short of breath. For a time, all was still, a rare stillness settling into Hjolmar’s mind. This crown, this collar of Khorne had saved him. Torturous dreams and unceasing ache were the weregeld of its protection. No cowardly magic would burn _his_ flesh.

He reached down, and grabbed the man’s blue tunic by the collar.

…

Storm clouds hung like bloated, waterlogged corpses over Hannesberg tower, fat with rain but utterly silent. There was no lightning to harry the enemy line, no thunder to sound doom in their hearts. Only the wind’s hushed song could be heard, though it now sang limp and without purpose.

            Hjolmar opened Renuald like the carcass of an elk, slicing from throat to groin. Valka waited nearby, her expression hopeful. Calloused hands worked over the hilts of her twin axes, the only signal of her apprehension.

            “Strip,” he said, kneeling down to the sorcerer’s fileted body. He stuck his arm elbow-deep into the warm chest cavity. She obeyed without comment.

            Hjolmar placed a bloody finger at her naval, and began to trace the profane upon her naked form. Runes and symbols that burned black in the muted light, patterns that were physically painful to look upon ran from her eyes to the space between her legs. His fingers traced unerringly, guided by hands unseen. Upon her face lay the mark of Khorne, and on stomach and breasts were gifted the holy eight-pointed star.

            When he was done, Valka had become a living idol to the war god, red devotion smeared across her mannish form. He looked up at her, resisting the urge to lay a placating hand on her cheek.

            He looked up at her, his face reassuring. “I’ve found nothing to aid him, Valka, but I know he will live. For now we can only revenge him, make the squats bleed for what they did.” He gestured to the markings spread across her rough skin. “By your hand will they suffer, by your teeth will their throats be torn.”

            He extended an open palm, which she took in her own. Blood seeped from between the clasped hands. “I must have your trust for what I will make you, Valka. You’ve earned mine. Let us bridge the fissure between us, and greet Joric together on his waking.”

            Her sad smile was like an animal’s, pure in its trust. “Let’s.”

            Hjolmar nodded, loosed his dagger with his free hand, and slit her throat.

            Her eyes widened in confusion as blood painted her neck, both hands shooting up to the terminal wound. A final tear streaked her bloodied face. She dropped to her knees, expression pleading as she stared up at him.

            **Now is the time of your pledge, Hjolmar Vorkjal.**

The voice had no source this time; it was not the wind, not the boom of cannons or Valka’s hoarse sputtering. It simply was.

            **Pledge me your love. Nothing is without a price. Refuse and your new tool will bleed out at your feet.**

“I do. Yes, I pledge my love. Fuel now my victory.”

The voice made a humming sound that Hjolmar assumed was its closest imitation of laughter.

            **Good. I will collect in time.**

Valka toppled forwards, landing squarely on her hands and knees. She vomited blackening blood onto the floor in thick gobbets.

            **Now.**

Her head snapped upwards in a mask of pain. Her muscles seemed to work independently beneath scarred skin, twisting and reshaping her body into something monstrous. The tendons of her neck pulled as tethers, ratcheting her head ever upward and the red smile across her throat ever wider.

**I am the harbinger, the chains of black, the reaper of skulls.**

            The fissure in her neck grew, split wide and wider as ruddy hair met the flesh of her back. Tendons, muscles, and bloodvessels pushed out from the tear, growing sharp and white as they speared into open air.

            **I am the fall.**

The sky curdled. It grew red with infection, veins of corruption spearing through the corpse flesh clouds that roiled above. In this light, the light of Hel that loomed behind all tales of gods and men, Valka grew. Red hair, tangled and feral, sprouted from her limbs. The hardening veins calcified into uniform teeth, and a grotesque maw tore wide across her trapezius muscles. The flesh of her back ran like liquid over her face, washing away all but her mouth like a torrential river. Her human teeth grew into thin incisors, like that of an immense mole. Her shoulder muscles bulged, the flesh splitting open as two eyes rotten with jaundice burst into the sky’s firelight. They had no pupils, only thin black rings, eight sets shrinking further with each increment. The orbs operated independently, moving crossed to wall-eyed with thick, wet sounds; the slick of offal through a grate.

            Still she grew, swelling and distorting like an overripe fruit, titanic hands sending hairline cracks scattering through the floor beneath Hjolmar’s feet.

            The terror lifted its new face to the sky, as if contemplating this novel, mundane world.

            It screamed.

           

**Ragarin**

**2318**

The concert of war was deafening. Its choir of screams mingled with the full orchestra of munitions loaded into bolt throwers, firearms, and organ cannons. Thunder drummed in the sky even as the periodic lightning suddenly abated. So loud was this war dirge that Ragarin could scarcely hear his own orders.

The rattle of armor was all but inaudible as he approached Hazkal, who now commanded two of the three organ cannons still functional. A great boom echoed through the uneven tambour as eight cannonballs lanced afresh into the _umgi_ city, another fractional chip from the porcelain monument’s inexplicable resilience.

"Leave the tower!" Ragarin shouted, still irate that Hjolmar dared to besmirch his challenge. "I want to drag him out by his woman's hair!"

Hazkal turned, soot smearing a grim countenance. He regarded Ragarin as one might regard a smear of goblin-shit across their boot.

"Yes, my king," Ragarin could not hear his words, but read them on his lips. His face spoke of fury barely restrained.

"If you have something to say, say it Captain!"

Hazkal rounded on him with such violence that one of the attendant gunners recoiled, as if an enemy had suddenly materialized from the dust-choked air. "Do you know how much that little foray into the thick of it cost us? Where was the discipline? Where was the implacable wall you _Kol_ were so famous for? You spent the lives of good men corralling an enemy you didn’t even kill!"

Ragarin felt like he'd been punched in the face. The brief moment of shock lapsed quickly into indignant fury. "This is the grudge! This is vengeance! It is our most sacred tenant!"

"It was _petty_ , you blasted-"

Hazkal's rebuke was cut short by a sudden, suffocating silence. It was as if the burgeoning siege had suddenly halted, only the distant clatter of discarded ammunition proving he had not gone deaf. The previously overwhelming noise seemed far away, like a passing thought.

Then there was only the scream.

Ragarin's palms flew up over his ears, but provided no aegis against the hideous shriek. It seemed hundreds, thousands of times louder than any cannon discharge. His ear drums felt like they'd been burned through, every bone in his body vibrated painfully against one another.

He looked up, tears streaming from tortured eyes. Everyone seemed to hear, to _feel_ , the scream. Some vomited, others simply fell to the ground and convulsed. He looked to Tower Hannesberg, the roiling clouds which once circled its apex seemed to shear in two, a curtain yanked aside to unveil a sky of hellish orange. There was no sun, no moon, no stars, no greater clouds beyond. All was opaque, depthless orange. It cast the battlefield in fiery imitation.

Then, in what felt something both an eternity and an eye blink, the noise ceased. Most looked up from their fetal stances, faces stained a pale sunset cast. Ragarin felt no ring in his ears, no sign he had been near-deafened a moment before. There was only the eerie rattle of recovering soldiers scrambling for discarded weaponry.

The dwarven army gave a collective shudder as the scream came again, all rage and no passion. It was far off now, suffocated by distance but nevertheless present. A loud booming sound drew Ragarin's gaze to the newly birthed dust cloud rising just before Hannesberg’s abused gate.

From the fog came terror incarnate.

Ragarin barely defeated his urge to run, a battle many of his compatriots lost in short order. He felt like a shard of ice had been implanted beneath his skin, directly atop his spinal column. He couldn't feel his legs, and his thoughts were blasted away like chimney smoke in a hurricane.

It ran on all fours, simian arms and equine legs propelling the Terror across the field faster than a gyrocopter. It leapt from corpse to corpse, eviscerating dwarf and _umgi_ alike into a red paste that clung hard between the creature's immense fingers. Thick ropes of drool danced beneath a leering mouth, and one of two crazed eyes seemed to follow Ragarin's own as it crashed into the firing line half a kilometer east of his position. The addled defenders hadn’t the time to loose a single shot.

Ragarin tried to regain his footing, tried to tighten his hands around the haft of _Uzkul_ , but he felt more inebriated than his most hedonistic victory celebrations. The scream came again, now in concert with those of his men. Body parts, never complete, spun into the air. Shattered machinery twirled like coins thrust into a strong wind. The firing finally, mercifully, began; gunshots competed against the screams for melody in the symphony of death.

            In their panic, several cannoneers fired through the lines in front of them, their crews driven into a murderously frantic counterattack. Artillery splintered, warriors broke apart, and the song of war found successor in their screams of horror.

            Suddenly, in what seemed less than seconds, it was upon him. Littered with weaponry wedged ineffectually into its grotesque flesh, the horror dove at him headlong, impossibly uniform incisors spreading wide to reveal the pulsing sphincter of its throat. Ragarin stepped backwards, thrusting his warhammer forward with both hands to stop the descending jaws.

            At the first shriek of metal, Ragarin wrenched his hands back. His left was far too slow, whether out of panic or simply a byproduct of previous wounds, he would never know. The enormous maw snapped shut as if unhindered, vertically bisecting _Uzkul_ and taking the fingers of Ragarin’s weak hand with it. He stumbled backwards, dropping what remained of his masters’ artistry amidst armored digits. It curled on itself like planed wood.

            The terror hunched low, rearing its hind legs like a dog hunting pray. Its back was... aflame? Ragarin nearly retched in his helmet when he saw the truth.

            Faces, hundreds of dwarven face pocked the creature’s back, each mouth torn wide in a shriek of agony. Black smoke poured from each open maw, lit from beneath like the smokestacks of some great furnace. The creature was a literal engine of war, every victim absorbed into the machine, the agony of their deaths fuel for daemonic fire.

            It looked down at him asynchronously, the left eye struggling to keep up with the right.

            A cannon blast cut through the screaming, and the sluggish eye exploded into yellowed jelly. The terror barely seemed to comprehend its own mutilation, and searched lazily for its attacker.

            Ragarin forced himself to his feet and ran, leaving the ruined weapon behind. He saw Hazkal ordering terrified rearming crews to make ready the smoking cannon before him. Pyroclastic smoke burst from the monster’s back in thick streams as its fingers clawed the dirt, making ready to charge.

            As one, the cannon fired and the beast shot forward. The cannonball pulped the beast’s upper lip and split two of its square teeth into razor-thin fragments. Hazkal leapt sidelong just as the terror whipped one thickly-veined arm in a clumsy windmill arc, pulverizing the cannon to lethal grapeshot.

            Those cannons that remained functional let loose another barrage at the creature, and Ragarin spread himself flat to avoid misfire and ricochet. Further meat was blasted from the monster’s hide, which sizzled and charred midair before disintegrating on churned earth.

            Hazkal retrieved a repeater crossbow from a nearby corpse, quickly firing bolt after bolt into the terror’s remaining eye. It wept tears of pus as it screeched in agony, a cry mingled with the dead pleading of its collected victims. The creature thrashed now, blindly threshing the soil at its feet and tossing derelict artillery where it had last seen the captain of guards.

            Ragarin scrambled to the left as an organ cannon danced a slow pirouette through the air. It pulverized the earth beside him, sending fragments of grassy dirt ricocheting from his armor. He felt a bomb go off in his chest, a sudden bout of hyperventilating he could not explain. He tried to claw further, but felt blood’s warm caress on his right thigh. He turned, suddenly close to immobile, to observe his mangled leg peering from beneath the wreckage.

            Ragarin did not scream, never that. He did, however, feel his clenched teeth on the verge of shattering. He tried lifting the ruined machinery, to contort in some manner wherein he could slide his ruined limb from beneath. His efforts yielded nothing but excruciating pain, and the thin shriek of rent armor. He twisted onto his back, following the pounding of titanic limbs to Hazkal.

            Hazkal ran between corpses, withdrawing weapons for a single shot before sprinting to the next, the horror stampeding clumsily behind like some great four-legged greenskin. Its strikes went wide, its blind and addled mind unable to entirely process the source of its wounding. Its jaw hung open as it searched, its aperture throat pulsating open and closed like a punctured heart. Ragarin could see the fire within, and the blackened hands clawing for escape.

            Ragarin wrenched himself over, running his one good hand through the blood and muck to find something, anything that might contribute to slaying the creature. He heard other, disparate gunshots behind him, the only support Hazkal was like to receive. He found a flintlock, clogged with mud but potentially salvageable, and a notched bastard sword. He pounded the firearm against the toppled cannon, dislodging what he could. He raised it to eye level. The Kol did not fight with guns, it was not their way. Mastery of all weapons, however, included those less desirable.

            He took aim, trying to figure what a single shot would accomplish, if anything. The beast was ragged, torn flesh hanging in strips like morbid jewelry, but showed no signs of slowing. He turned his gaze on the fleeing form of Hazkal, an idea forming in his head.

            “Hazkal!” he called, voice far thinner than he had remembered. Several cries were swallowed beneath the creature’s own unceasing wail. The gunshot and subsequent bullet-hole at his feet alerted the guard captain to Ragarin’s presence. “To me!”

            He hoped now more than ever that Hazkal would simply do what was commanded.

            There was no hesitation in the other dwarf’s movement. He skidded briefly, short legs struggling to keep him upright at the hair point turn. The abused patch of grass was trampled to earthy pulp moments later. As he watched Hazkal run at all speed, slavering daemon in tow, Ragarin suddenly began to comprehend why other races viewed a dwarf’s locomotion as comical.

            Ragarin pressed himself against the earth below, both hands gripped on the rusty sword. He could hear the terror’s monstrous footfalls, and prayed to Grimnir his death would not be on accident. Hazkal leapt over the downed cannon, continuing his sprint on the opposite side. The ground shook with the terror’s approach, its limited attention still fixed upon the one who had blinded it. Ragarin pulled the blade back over his head, and swung skywards.

            The creature vaulted over him, one immense fist flattening the earth inches from his head. The blade cut into its flesh with startling ease, fire-blackened guts pouring from the wound like tripe through a grinder. The beast seemed hardly to notice, barely slowing its pursuit as steaming entrails dug shallow grooves through the ground beneath it.

            Ragarin turned, head pounding from the fresh pain in his mutilated leg. A glistening organ the size of a goat cooled on the tilled earth before him, still pulsing with unknown purpose. It drew his attention from the chase as if pulling both light and focus from its surroundings. With a wet rip, the organ parted down the middle, blackened hands spilling forth like the organs themselves moments before. The hole pulled wide with their reaching, charred flesh cracking, rivers of molten blood dripping from trembling fingers. Through the gap was a churning furnace, a miles long thresher populated by screaming dead.

            Ragarin’s body tried to recoil, but he was pinned in place, nonsense signals filling his brain as he stared into the impossible. It seemed endless, inevitable. Like life was but a passing instant to existence in the furnace beyond. Its timelessness burrowed deep, numbing any sense of the present. Why not give in now? A relative second in the fire or a lifetime of dread; such was the price of knowing.

            The fog crept through his mind, ghostly hands suffocating his brain, beckoning him to the torture beyond the veil. The serpents of corruption wound through his mind, infecting his every thought, his every memory.

Memories, though, were powerful.

            Whatever sought to pull Ragarin beyond screeched in horror as the grudge, the vengeance sworn before the gods themselves, blasted it to impotent cinders. The blackened hands trembled in pain, curling in on themselves like parchment upon open flame. Ragarin gripped his sword and swung it like a butcher’s cleaver, reducing the blighted organ to a lump of fetid meat.

…

Ragarin never saw the end of the battle, it was only hours later that Okri, leading a party of soldiers, found him half-buried beneath the derelict artillery. The squire helped him to his remaining foot, his other leg hanging from him like the pulverized meat it was. They all but demanded he receive immediate attention from the medics, but Ragarin would not be kept from the man who had saved them.

            Half-way through the artillery line, punctuating the divide between those cannons that still functioned and those that had been blasted apart, there was the pile. A mound of corpses swelled from the ridge like a cancer, hundreds of dismembered bodies linked arms and paid tribute to the bloody finale of the terror’s brief campaign. Of the daemon, there was no sign, only the shattered skeleton of an uplander, far too slight to have filled the beast which ravaged them so.

            Hazkal had been chewed apart. The metal of his armor parted in clean bites, the flesh beneath almost equal in uniformity. There was a sword in his right hand, now five feet distant from his body, blackened and melted by hellfire. Despite the lethal dismemberment he did not seem inanimate. His face was still taught, his eyes glassy as they stared furiously into fading clouds.

            Hazkal’s condition gave rise to no thoughts Ragarin wished to have.

            “Restart the bombardment,” he said with all the cold command he could muster. “And for Grimnir’s sake take his body off of there.”

           

**Joric**

**2318**

The scream pulled Joric from fitful dreaming, a child again beneath his mother’s boot. The world swam. His eyes darted, at first his only tactile components. They narrowed at the dim candlelight, the dying flames somehow more blinding than open sky. Sensation came next, and he felt the sweaty hands clamped about his own. Investigation found Jane slumped across the bedside, hands clutched tightly over his even as she slept.

            Next was pain. Even through his haze, Joric shuddered. He felt splintered bones gouge the torn flesh of his insides, a thin wheeze escaping lungs tight with injury. Jane stirred, weary eyes brightening as she stared up at him. Near slack lips protested his smile.

            To Joric’s infinite relief, she did not embrace him. He imagined whatever flimsy lowland medicine held him together would not survive such a thing. Perhaps their healers had told her as much. Already tears stained her cheeks, and several wet patches had appeared on his blanket. She smiled back, but it was a pained thing. It seemed to strain her entire being not to cry into his embrace. He tried to lift a reassuring hand to her, but his arm would not move.

            “Don’t worry,” he said. His voice was quiet, rasping. He hoped whatever cadence he could manage would be understood. “Don’t worry.”

…

In time, Hjolmar came to them. Joric’s murky vision had cleared, and a drip-feed of water had returned some of his voice. Hjolmar’s was a stark contrast to Joric’s ruined form. His armor, once the color of carpets and banners, gleamed the shade of blood. Metal sculpted to bolster his form now seemed inadequate to contain it, and he looked to stand taller than before. Perhaps it was simply Joric’s perspective.

            Jane stirred, their hours together shared in little besides rest. Hjolmar seemed not to notice her, instead looking at Joric with a mix of horror and frustration. He imagined Hjol had raged long at his inability to improve Joric’s condition. Joric also imagined he might be mildly irritated at his disobeying orders, though such things were never binding to a Norsca. He wondered if Hjol remembered such.

            Joric smiled. This time his lips obeyed.

            Hjolmar’s face twitched. He looked on the verge of tears, or rather one incapable of such displays trying desperately in imitation.

            “Look what they did to you.” Hjolmar’s words were equal parts regret and fury. “I will have their blood.”

            Of those words, there was nothing but hate.

            Hjolmar circled the bed, hands working in angry synchrony. He sat opposite Jane, apparently noticing her for the first time. He stared at her blankly, uncomprehending.

            “Hjol,” Joric’s voice remained pathetically small, though the cadence came smooth. His two companions looked at him as one, and Joric strained to stifle agonized laughter. Their similarities had never seemed apparent before, but as they turned to face him in synchrony such seemed obvious. Blonde hair and green eyes both settled atop expressions of fearful concern.

            He settled himself. “I don’t know how long I’ll last after-”

            Hjolmar seemed to appear overtop him, one gauntleted hand gripping his shoulder so tightly the bones within felt on the verge of cracking. “You’re going to live.” It sounded more a command than a statement.

            His grip opened as he only then seemed to realize the violence of his action. He looked to Jane, who had grabbed his opposite arm in futile defiance. Hjolmar pulled the hand away as if recoiling from an open flame.

            “Well, maybe if you don’t grab me again,” Joric chuckled despite himself, and immediately regretted the action. He sucked air through gritted teeth, pausing a while before continuing. “But I’ve something to ask of you.”

            “Anything.”

            “Will you translate her? We’ve spent many nights together since arriving, but always in silence. If there is to be an end of me, I would know her thoughts.”

            Hjolmar’s face was all at once the image of desperation, a tortured man pleading for death’s release. Joric gave him a lopsided grin, unsure what to make of the expression.

            “What, is translation so arduous a request?”

            Hjolmar’s face slackened into one without expression, and he regarded Jane at length. Her own eyes darted between the two, apparently unsure what to make of the gesture. After a long silence, Hjolmar gave a single nod.

            Joric looked to his companion. “Hello,” was all that came to mind.

            Hjolmar spoke to her in what Joric assumed was explanation. His voice was a colorless drone. Jane turned back to Joric, tears running fresh from her eyes, face struggling to convey joy.

            “Hello,” Hjolmar echoed her words.

            Joric’s smile came unbidden, no longer an effort to maintain. He felt wetness on his cheeks. “I think I love you.”

            Hjolmar twitched again, and seemed on the edge of vomiting. His mouth bulged outward, like he fought desperately to keep his tongue from oozing forth.

            “Hjolmar, are you alright?’

            Avoiding Joric’s gaze, he all but shouted the Reichspiel, to which Jane gave a small jump. She seemed to relax again as the words sank in.

            “Me too. You saved me from Hellman. When I look at you, I see sympathy. It’s like I was invisible to everyone else.”

            “I know what it’s like,” Joric responded. “When I was young, my mother beat me every week. I was helpless then. I didn’t want you to be now.”

            Silence greeted the admission. He turned to Hjolmar, confused. He stared at Joric wide-eyed, lips peeled to display grinding teeth. He shuddered, as if suddenly naked amidst the frozen wastes. _“Get out,”_ he whispered, the words a senseless plea.

            Jane blinked, looking back to their translator. She seemed unprepared for the phrase. Her lips parted to form a reply.

            _“GET OUT!”_ Hjolmar shrieked, his voice so violent Joric’s felt his ears ring. He was suddenly standing, hands tightened into trembling claws as he faced their companion. Hjolmar’s face was a mask of fury, and spittle ran from a grim rictus. Jane gave a squeak of alarm and all but fell from her seat, one palm raised as if to ward away the sudden outburst.

            Hjolmar made as if to advance on her, and she scrambled from the room.

            “By the Four, Hjol! What’s wrong with you?” Joric tried to rise in confrontation, but he only succeeded in driving fresh pain through his prone body.

            Hjolmar’s rage subsided as he turned back to Hjolmar, his face again twisted into an agonized plead. “You. Never. Told. Me.” His voice came out in something like a tortured whine.

            “Khorne’s blood Hjol, I never thought-“

            “Your mother beat you and you never told me!” Hjolmar doubled over as if in supplication, his eyes rimmed red as if emptied of tears. “I-“ his voice cracked, the high note echoing through the chamber like the cry of a strangled bird. “I told you everything! Everything of me!”

            “You never asked!” Joric retorted, more confused than angry at the sudden outburst. “You told me everything of you, but you never asked about me. All conversation was the dreams and woes of Hjolmar Vorkjal! Not Joric,” he breathed, the brief response already sucking the air from his lungs. “Never Joric.”

             Hjolmar’s face paled to a ghost white. His jaw worked silently, eyes darting as if searching for some rebuke, some evidence that Joric had been lying. Joric’s gaze did not waver, bile he had long thought buried now seeping into his mood. He held his head up fractionally, and put all his pitiful strength into a defiant scowl.

            “I…” was all Hjolmar could manage, his face a mask of stunned fear. He backed away from Joric as if fleeing an apex predator. He put his back to Joric, and all but fled from the room.

            Joric’s head fell exhausted to a flattened pillow, sweat soaking his bandages and shift. It was hard to breathe, the lungfulls of air he craved interrupted by pained sputters. It felt as though someone had place a boulder on his chest. He felt some of the stitching in his gut tear open, and his thin blanket slowly clouded with blood.

            Attendants came not long after, each of the three men garbed in robes and bird masks. They stared at him with empty, reflective eyes as his bindings were peeled free, before probing the wound with delicate gloved hands.

            Joric bared his teeth at the sudden pain. His grip quivering grip suddenly felt very empty. He prayed to the Four that Jane would return, to be here as they did their bloody work.

            Neither Jane nor unconsciousness came to Joric as they worked.

 

**Ragarin**

**2318**

When they amputated his leg, Ragarin did not scream. There had been screaming enough this night. He bit hard into the coiled rag between his teeth, and sweat ran in such volume it threatened to overtake his substantial eyebrows. The cutting of his flesh was as torture, slow and deliberate. When medics reached the splintered bone beneath, it was something beyond agony. He could feel every shudder, every catch as the already dulled bonesaw zigzagged across his femur.

            Even then, he did not scream.

            When they had finished, he looked down at his leg, now terminating in a bound stump halfway to where his knee had been. He had failed to pass out from the pain, though his thoughts swam fluid and unfocused.

            Pushing aside the flap with his free hand, the other clutched firmly upon the haft of the nameless war hammer, which now served as a crutch. The smell of the dead immediately wafted through the slit of his helm. The scent of rotted meat permeated the mouth of the tunnel, and the dead were stacked in piles far from the firing line. Each would have to be carted back to Mountainhearth when the affair was done, in whatever few pieces remained if needs be.

            It was worse than the killing fields of Knull, during that last charge against the Winged Lord. Thousands had died that day, perhaps more than here, but they had been scattered, a vast seeding of the earth. Ragarin felt the beginnings of doubt as he passed beneath the shadow of a corpse pile. It was taller than he was, almost twice over.

            _How could so many have died so quickly_? He wondered. _How could dwarves be slaughtered so easily?_

            The answer, though obvious, seemed inadequate to explain the degree of carnage. _Dum_. _Chaos_. The daemonic was at work here. The debasement of the northern tribes was not unknown to the dwarves, even those so sequestered as the dwarves of Svarland. Mere reverie did not account for this, however. Ragarin did not march with an avatar of Grimnir at his back. Something wrong, not simply in the purview of mortals but in the gods’ own realm, had occurred in Hannesberg.

            Even that did not suffice. Shards of metal emerged from the earth like nascent flora, and the corpse piles were anything but singular in their stature. The sparse population of the camp was made worse by the juxtaposition, and the chorus of cannon fire the day before had withered to an irregular sputter.

            _This can’t be right_ , he thought, counting the depleted shots as the echoed through the evening darkness. _He must have been mistaken, mislead by his pained fugue._ Only half the firing line had fallen, it sounded as though less than a quarter sounded now.

            As if in answer to this thought, Okri appeared, breathless with exhaustion. A piece of rolled vellum was clutched tightly in his left hand.

            “My king-“

            “Why are we firing at less than capacity?” Ragarin interrupted, suddenly impatient. He could all but feel victory bleeding through his fingers.

            “My king,” the squire repeated with reignited composure. “You must read this.”

…

_By order of Azkahr Rik, queen regent and mother to Elgram Rik, son of Grobi Rik and rightful king of Mountainhearth, the traitor Ragarin Dreng is to be apprehended and returned to court for the following charges:_

_-The murder of Grobi Rik, rightful king of Mountainhearth_

_-The usurpation of the Mountain Throne, acquired through neither blood nor just cause_

_-The murder and impersonation of Hror, rightful champion of the_ Kol _and of Mountainhearth_

_-The failure to immediately kill an elvish ambassador, who herself was guilty of both violating treaty and of being of elvish descent_

_-The removal of patriarchs from positions rightly inherited in the fields of: banking, smiting, trade of clothing, trade of food, trade of weaponry, trade of stone, and most grievously, trade of alcohol._

_It is the duty of any dwarf or force of dwarves capable of Dreng’s arrest to do so, and bring him to Mountainhearth for appropriate trial and just punishment._

_Co-signed and ratified by: Queen Regent Azkahr Rik, Chief Greybeard Daal (untitled), Krestus “Shrewd” Molgord, patriarch of Clan Molgord, Azai “Thresher” Dun, patriarch of Clan Dun._

            Ragarin’s armored fingers contorted into a ruinous fist, digging wide holes through the vellum before he ever reached the charge about the elf. He did, however, notice the presence of Daal’s name at the decree’s bottom.

            He felt the tidal wall of fury building. It was a pitiless, depthless rage that he feared may threaten even his allies, were they close enough at hand. No sooner had the threat of violence begun before it passed not through him, but over him. The fury did not steal him away, did not drive him into a fit of violence. All its fatal pull managed to extract from Ragarin was what little resolve kept him standing.

            He felt the makeshift crutch and mutilated missive flee from loosening fingers an instant before he hit the ground.

            “My king!” Okri shouted, falling to his knees and attempting to hoist Ragarin from his stupor.

            Ragarin barely perceived the mailed hands scrabbling at his warped plate.

_No, not mine. Hror’s, whom I have murdered in legacy if not in body._

Ragarin was tempted to wave the squire away, and whatever help his faraway voice was beckoning. The words “I’m fine” crossed his mind, but that would be comically untrue. No, he was not fine, and perhaps indeed in need of assistance. It was simply that he no longer desired it.

Sometime later, a gulf of hours or seconds, he had been pulled onto a stone chair, a deep indication of where it had been dragged speeding away between his feet.

“My King?” Okri repeated, leaning close. What remained of his generals circled warily in the background, made blurry by swimming eyes.

“My path,” Ragarin said in some half-whispered laugh. “Speeding away.”

“My King, you need to-“

“Why are you all still here?” he rasped. He felt like someone had scraped his lungs out with a fork.

Okri leaned closer, eyes darting between Ragarin and the assembled soldiery. “They don’t believe, my King. They think the letter is lies, they _know_ it is. Even the others, those who abandoned us; not one of them was willing to come for you. For the oath they swore.”

“What good is an oath sworn to a-“

Okri’s expression hardened, and his whisper was spoken with such fury that Ragarin nearly recoiled. “My King, you don’t get to lose hope. Not when your men still fight. Even reduced, they believe in your dream. For Mountainhearth. For Svarland. For Hror.”

Ragarin looked up at the gathered dwarves. There was no sadness in their features, no defeat pulling at their mouths or furrowing their brows. Some, he could tell with stunning clarity, believed he truly was Hror, here to fight and avenge his honor, and to do the same for his people. Others knew with unnerving certainty just who Ragarin was and what he was doing. But there was support there; assurance that yes, his actions were the lesser of two evils.

Ragarin placed a gauntleted hand on Okri and stood, so quickly that he nearly sent them both sprawling to the earthy floor.

“You have all done me great honor, and to yourselves twice so. That said, I will not lie. Treachery in our ranks, and in our home, has cost us this war.” He raised a hand to forestall the inevitable protest. “Even if we take Hannesberg, a victory that would surely cost us more than we had ever imagined, we will be easy pickings for the false queen and her decrepit spawn. To do so is defeat in itself, what longevity will our ideals have if they die tomorrow, splattered on the tower city’s feeble walls? We must live on. We must flee.”

No petty gesture could withhold the tide of angry denials that erupted from those gathered, while still others shared uncertain glances. _Not a demagogue, then_ , Ragarin thought.

“This is not surrender!”

All turned to Okri, who stood tall beside his ruined master. His voice had regained the naïve but inspiring passion of the day he pledged himself. “This war must be fought on two fronts, and doing so requires a different tactic. We are but warriors, nameless before a wider history. But Hror, Hror is more than that. Hror is a name already comfortable in the annals of legend, and if he is allowed to die then Grobi Rik has won. Greed, _cowardice_ , has won.”

Ragarin watched his lieutenants, suddenly enraptured by Okri’s decree. “We must fight on. We cannot win today, for wretched betrayal has shattered our hammer blow. But what those traitors don’t know, what the _umgi_ don’t know, is that a war which might have ended today shall haunt them ever more. Until the day that Hror sits again on the Mountain Throne, their blood will flow unceasing!”

To this, they cried their assent. Ragarin could scarcely help adding his own voice to the defiant roar.

So they set to work, retrieving artillery and collapsing temporary dwellings. The dead were borne away, denied Mountainhearth’s ancestral tomb in favor of glory in the annals of Hror’s children. When the day came that Svarland was theirs once more, those who fell today would be held in deific honor.

Ragarin watched them work. For the first time, he could not participate. His march was done; his body, finally so abused as to protest in simple numb inaction, sat invalid upon that stony chair. Okri stood nearby sentinel, relaying the occasional order in a voice of newly-earned authority.

“Okri,” he said. His voice was oddly resigned. “Send an emissary to Hannesberg. Let it read that the king of Mountainhearth would duel their Norsca lord.”

Okri appeared genuinely shocked. “My king, you cannot do this. What of honorable retreat? You have one leg, what good will your death accomplish? What is Hror’s legacy if you fall?”

“I am not Hror. Were that Stevik had survived in my stead, or that somehow you had taken up the mantle. No, I am just a dead man, blind to the vipers in my midst. Someone with charisma, who could rally the world to his back should have preserved Hror’s legacy.” He looked up at his squire, and smiled as best he could. “But there was only me, tactless Ragarin Dreng, traitorous Ragarin Dreng.”

He pulled the still unmarked helmet free of his face, upon which the evening air felt wondrous. “I have lived long past my due. Another must lead, for I can no longer resist the ancestor’s call.” He proffered the helm to Okri. “Find someone of greater worth for His aspect. It is no longer mine to carry.”

Okri did not move to accept. “My king, this is madness. Why would this Norsca even deign to fight you?”

“Oh, he’ll come,” Ragarin promised. “I wounded him, you see. He has a vengeance of his own to see done.”

…

War hammer strapped across his back, Ragarin hobbled across the killing fields to Hannesberg. In his left hand he gripped the standard of Mountainhearth, the damp fabric blowing lightly in the dying wind. Attached crudely to his severed knee was a boot made static by internal splints. It was enough to stand, but little else.

In the wake of the daemon’s hellish light, the clouds were again free to empty upon the corpse fields below, a thick sheet of rain dancing in the afternoon’s pale light.

It was not, as Okri may have guessed, intended suicide. If Ragarin could fell Hjolmar now the long war to come would be that much easier. He hoped the answer to this strange summons would not be an arrow in the neck.

He had no illusions about surviving this day, of course, nor did he entertain fantasies of some titanic duel between himself and the Norsca leader. The man had dueled Hror with near-equal skill, and Ragarin was but a pale shadow of even his own ability that day. The legends would not sing of the one-legged dwarf’s matching of skill with a northerner in his prime.

He hoped that however death found him; he would fall in a manner worthy of Grimnir. He wondered if this war had pleased the God of Battle, if the righteous cause had been enough to outweigh the heresy of its leader. It was with frightening surety that he thought neither could erase the other. The war was just, Ragarin’s coup was just, but his own soul bore a guilt no deed could overshadow.

He looked up at Hannesberg’s towering spire, clouds no longer circling ominous to its peak. Somehow, it retained a fraction of the hellish glow that permeated the land for that brief, horrifying engagement; as if it had absorbed the encroaching warp like a sponge in water.

These thoughts were interrupted by Hannesberg’s gates grinding open to reveal a solitary figure. Even beneath the curtain of rain, Hjolmar Vorkjal was immediately recognizable. Armed in motley of mail and leathers, Hjolmar strode solitary from Hannesberg to meet his challenger. Golden hair danced in the wind, trailing in concert with flapping cloth that bled from his armor in red sheets. On his head was a crown, a meager circlet of rusted iron that all but wilted compared to Ragarin’s own.

The Norsca seemed to grow as he approached, swelling with a presence beyond his material body. It was as if his soul had grown too large for his corpus, and now bled violent intent into the swirling winds. He looked triumphant, as if he had already won.

 _Good_ , Ragarin thought. _If he dismisses me, I may be able to land the killing blow_.

Both stopped in the same instant, two arms lengths from each other, more than enough for either to strike. Ragarin planted his standard in the soft earth, drawing his war hammer with ponderous effort.

“So you are the King of the Dwarves?” Hjolmar began, speaking in his inarticulate Khazalid. He looked at Ragarin as though he were a piece of meat, his eyes hungry for blood. “What is this, some attempt to parley?”

“There will be no diplomacy with your kind, daemon-worshipper. Whatever vile force puppets you is no match for Grimnir’s fury.”

“No?” The reply was dismissive, spoken through a barely-suppressed laugh. Ragarin would use this arrogance. His fingers curled tighter around the weapon’s haft. “Grimnir’s fury seems little better than a cripple, though correct me if I am mistaken.”

When Ragarin did not respond, the Norsca continued. “So, who are you? Come to revenge those black-armored warriors I kill in Urbaz?”

“I serve Hror,” Ragarin began.

“Hror is dead,” Hjolmar retorted with sudden intensity. “I sever his head myself.”

“Then perhaps I am a ghost?” Ragarin retorted with all the menace he could conjure.

For reasons Ragarin would never understand, Hjolmar began laughing at this declaration. He threw his head back, mouth gaping as he screamed his amusement at the tearful sky. There was no mockery in his jubilant quaking, only genuine, terrible amusement.

The moment this descent into trembling madness began, Ragarin struck.

**Joric**

She came to him weeping.

Jane all but threw herself into his arms, his inquiries taking the form of a pained gasp as his innards screamed their protest.

Such did not help her mood, and she retreated almost as quickly as she had come. She stood quivering at the bedside, both hands clamped tight around his own.

“What?” he rasped, doing his best to keep the pain from his voice. “What?”

His thoughts quickly turned to Hjolmar. Already regretting that earlier outburst, Joric wondered if something had become of the jarl. Was Hannesberg overrun? The bombardment had finally ceased, but word of neither victory nor occupation had been given.

She tugged at his right hand, motioning toward the empty doorway.

“Hjolmar wants,” her voice cracked on every syllable. “Hjolmar wants.”

 _Then he should come his own damned self_ , Joric thought. His thoughts leapt to the darkest of possibilities, images of Hjolmar earning fates worse than his own. Reconciliation was not in the jarl’s nature. Joric imagined him calling from his death bed.

“Fine, yes,” he grunted, knowing full well her lack of understanding. He rolled to his side, propping himself diagonally on one arm. He felt like a leather sack worn long beyond its years, ready to split and dump its contents at the first opportunity.

His legs remained largely unscathed, though days of bed rest and irregular meals left them too uncertain to spare him the least bit of pain. Jane was no help, despite her efforts, and all but buckled in attempting to assist his balance. His curses were fast approaching the unconditional.

“He’d better have lost both feet,” Joric commented to no one in particular, pink saliva running wet from parted lips.

…

The stitches in his stomach had opened again by the time they reached the throne room, and a fresh scrape adorned his left cheek after toppling into a nearby wall. Jane was all but damp with sweat under his arm, a feeling he may have enjoyed in some other circumstance.

The pair staggered from an entryway at the hall’s center, the occasional drop of blood landing invisible on the crimson ermine beneath their feet. Joric looked up, wet hair plastering his forehead.

Volkord’s bleached throne lay in pieces at the bottom of the dais, framed by the shattered marble of some toppled statue. The rectangular base had been dragged to the hall’s meridian, around which stood the pensive nobility. A fearful pallor was visible even beneath their clownish makeup. Like sculpted wings, they fanned out on either side of the thing seated upon the makeshift stool.

            Armored in blood red that bent and warped like sinew, the deeper crimson of its cape bunched in loose embrace. One hand curled around the grip of a polished sword, its tip disappearing into the stone floor at the thing’s feet. About a crown of iron coiled locks of gold, which themselves framed a face of carved ivory. Its gaze, once a brilliant emerald, now shone the diseased hue of corpses.

            Joric felt the heat of his wounds grow cold as dead flesh.

            “Joric,” it said in a voice like parting meat. Its cadence lacked all but mocking familiarity.

            The hall seemed to drink the word, snatching it from Joric’s ears only just after he’d parsed it. There was no echo. There was no sound, not from the guards or menials or nobility.

            “You are found guilty of Regicide, for the murder of Lord Hellman Volkord. So too are you guilty of abandoning your post, for which forty-one paid with their lives.”

            Jane seemed the only other living being in the hall, the room’s once lively white suddenly cold and dead. She looked between them in confusion. Joric felt he couldn’t move his gaze from the parody of Hjolmar that pronounced empty judgment. He had been changed before, filled with a power apparently beyond him, but this was not augmentation. It was replacement.

            “Your sentence is death.”

            It stood.

            “In honor of past deeds, I’ll allow you to die weapon in hand.”

            It gestured to one of the menials, who struggled to deliver a long axe not unlike Joric’s own. He took it in his free hand, not looking at the man, and planted it head-first at his feet. He leaned off of Jane, though she made no effort to distance herself.

            The thing pulled its own weapon free of the stone sheath, wielding it one-handed as a man might wield a twig.

            “You aren’t Hjol,” Joric said, finally giving voice to his solitary thought. It halted mid-stride, halfway down the shallow steps.

            “What?”

            “Hjol would never…” Joric gaped for air, even clipped statements sapping what little strength was not devoted to remaining upright. “…hurt and humiliate his friends.” Then, after a moment: “did you send Valka to her death, or kill her yourself?”

            It didn’t answer.

            Joric gave a wan smile. “Hjol was a real bastard, but he was my friend. He was _our_ friend. I don’t know what _you_ are.”

            It returned the smile, though its rotten eyes remained static.

            “I didn’t know you, Joric. It seems you never knew me.”

            Before he could raise the axe in defense, the thing’s blade had run him through.

 

Hjolmar

            **_Your debt is owed_**

            He turned to scan the empty battlefield, dampened cape coiling about him like a snake. He was only dimly aware of the dwarf’s blood vanishing into his blade, streams becoming droplets over still polished steel.

“What debt?” Hjolmar spat into the chill wind. The steady rain hissed and popped as it boiled on his armor. “Love? What price is such a weakling emotion for the Blood God?”

            **_Forever do I fall, dog. I am beholden the glory of my master’s realm, but I have none to exact his tenants upon. None to burn, none to maim. If you will not share my fall, I demand another; a soul of value, not that of some nameless dwarf. I demand your love._**

…

            _It will be quick_ , Hjolmar thought. _Like the dwarf._

            The blade shot out, as if by its own volition, poised to bisect Joric’s heart.

            _It will be quick; he’ll feel nothing._

He thought of how the sword had cut through the dwarf, flesh and armor fleeing the blade like so much smoke. Everything seemed muted now, as if a thin sheet of ice had grown between himself and the world. Time grew sluggish, sounds distant. The sword traced a slow path, over Joric’s trembling hand and into the flesh of his chest.

            It stopped.

A thin rivulet of blood was all that signaled the blade had even penetrated his flesh.

            Hjolmar blinked. No, this wasn’t right. His blade was empowered, _he_ was empowered, yet it had cut no deeper than lowland silverware.

            Joric made no effort to hide the pain as he pulled his axe lamely from the floor, its lethal edge moving ponderously through empty air.

            Hjolmar grimaced, as much at the feeble attack as his own lack of attention. Had Joric any strength left in him, it may have even landed. Something ached inside him; he’d never considered Joric might retaliate.

            He retracted the sword and swung to decapitate, blade plunging toward Joric’s exposed neck. Again arterial crimson bubbled from what scarcely qualified a cut. Joric hadn’t even moved, it was as if all momentum had been robbed at the moment of impact.

            Hjolmar was now aware of the woman screaming at him. Tears stained her cheeks as she interposed herself between the two, all the while calling on the court or guards for aid. None moved.

            He swatted her aside with steel knuckles, and she rolled sidelong into the armored feet of a guard. The man belatedly stepped aside, leaving her shuddering there alone. Blood seeped between her fingers as she cradled her ruined face, a pink stream now trailing her right eye.

            _There. There is the intent._

Hjolmar stopped, listening to his thoughts. His eyes lingered on the shaking woman.

            _The blade won’t cut without your inte_

            Joric’s blade came up. A loud clang pierced his fugue as the smile of a two-handed axe impacted the bottom of his crown. Hjolmar reeled, and his blood painted a steaming arc across white tile. He clutched at his face with an armored hand, feeling the leather palm brush against naked sinew and gumline.

            He yanked the hand away. Half his vision was stained crimson, and warm fluid gushed beneath his left eye.

            _“You…”_ was all he could manage, fingers closing around a dampened palm.

            He looked at Joric, whose axe had fled his grip and now sat impotent three meters distant. The three scars that framed his ice-blue gaze shone red and inflamed. Furious defiance burned hot on his features.

            Hjolmar roared. A single stride closed the distance before he severed Joric’s right hand. The Norsca made a gagging noise as he clutched at the stump, a few ragged sinews pulling desperately to keep the appendage off the floor.

            He hacked again, a stumbling evasion turning Hjolmar’s debilitating strike into the flaying of Joric’s left forearm. He screamed now, a curtain of blood oozing from exposed extensors.

            He hacked again, and a third of Joric’s remaining hand sloughed from the palm below.

He hacked again, and a hairy mess of scalp danced obscenely through the air.

            Ear. Fingers. Muscles. Arteries. Organs. These things all fell from Joric in bloody heaps, his quivering stance crumpling beneath its murdered cargo. What remained of the loose shift bunched at his ankles, saturated with the blood running fast down muscular legs.

            A wet slap signaled the standing cadaver’s acquiescence to death. Everything above his waist was as meat through a trapery, a thick slop of gore spreading wide beneath the solid remains. From the ruin of his head shone reddened teeth and wide eyes, hatred frozen upon what could nominally be called a face.

            Jane, returned and clutching at Joric as if to piece him back together, vomited through warding fingers and into the soup of offal that now stained her fine dress. She fell onto muddied forearms, shuddering as her body vented liquid grief from eyes, nose, and mouth.

            He felt nothing.

Taut muscles relaxed, and Hjolmar craned his head to the ceiling, though he contemplated not. A slight nod indicated the nobles were free of the grim spectacle, and they fled the hall in short order. Brennen, reduced to a mere spectator, all but climbed over his peers as he made his exit. The servants fled as well, willing to risk reprimand so long as they were freed from the sudden butchery.

            He tried to call the daemon, but his headspace remained silent. The crown bit still, but no hellish ache infected the crude forging. Some instinct imparted that his dreams, too, would be empty.

            The world shifted anew, now garishly clear. The actions of those around him, once an intriguing puzzle to solve, suddenly appeared rote and predictable. Details came to him with the ease of breath; his brief memory of the court’s assembled nobles surrendering their trained personalities in stunning detail. How easy it would be to cow them all.

            The petals of the world flower lay unfurled before him, only to reveal its own emptiness.

            He looked down at Jane, frozen in her despair. He had seen so little of this woman who had stolen his Joric, and yet knew all about her. Fragility. Vanity. Patience.

            _“I am no threat, I am barely nobility. Perhaps it is lucky we never managed to conceive a child.”_

Hjolmar considered what little he knew of the Empire. Such was a war he was unprepared to fight. Suicide was no monument to the glory of Khorne, and his presence would not go unnoticed forever. He needed legitimacy in the eyes of their sprawling bureaucracy. He needed to shrink his rule into something unworthy of their notice.

            He wondered if Volkord’s heir born a month out of expectancy would fall beneath such notice.

            He placed an armored hand on her shoulder, and felt her shiver at his touch.

 

**Rickard**

**2335**

Hjolmar Volkord fell silent for a long while. His attention seemed affixed to a point far beyond him, beyond the walls that bound the oversized chamber. Rickard saw his expression twitch from muted longing to disgust and back again.

            Rickard’s thoughts began to wander, and he chastised himself for being so fearful of this meandering reminiscence. So mundane a tale of war and etiquette, with so banal an ending in a man taking his brother’s spouse. Rickard supposed he should be glad he was to marry a woman he truly loved, and who shared the feeling.

            “I loved her, you know. More than anything.”

             Rickard blinked, pulling himself free of vague fantasy. He cocked his head fractionally at the nonsense words.

            “I know… I know what she felt. That it wasn’t love, not the same… kind. I just- I wanted to forget. I wanted to put it away, forever. Let it collect dust on some shelf of the mind.”

            The eyes that focused on Rickard’s hardly seemed his fathers’ at all.

            “But then there was you. Every day, every day you grew, and you looked more like her. And now… here you are. I thought I could put that feeling behind me but every day, every moment I have to look at you I can only see her. Every moment together I have to look into those same eyes. Blue, like thin ice.”

            “Father-“

            “I tried to love you. I tried to give you a good life before today, but the gods still see fit to torment me. Is my promise of worth not enough? Or do they look upon all their servants with such spite?”

            “Father, you’re speaking nonsense.” Rickard felt pity for the man, despite himself. He had seen many a servant, all better men than his sire, fall to madness with age. Surely Hjolmar could not be so old as to lose his mind, but even now he babbled as if in a world of memory and half-truths.

            He made to stand, to try and calm whatever had suddenly possessed the king of Hannesberg, but a pair of strong hands gripped his arms and held him fast. He turned to see Brother Sigmund leering down at him, his passive smile peeled back to form a hungry leer. Rickard heard nothing of his approach.

            “Get your hands off me, priest.” Rickard pulled himself forwards, but was again forced back into the chair, the priest’s spindly fingers seemed to hold the strength of iron. The man shook his head, the smile now sitting static over his features. His eyes darted to the left, and Joric followed his gaze to a dozen acolytes, their faces obscured by lowered hoods. Their hands were devoid of the usual censers and scripture, and instead they all clutched polished daggers.

            Panic threatened to overwhelm him, and he twisted his head forward again. “Father?” His voice sounded detestably pleading even to his own ears.

            The unfamiliar eyes had gone, replaced by the stony green Rickard had known all his life. They seemed unsurprised by this turn of events, uncaring.

            “Father, what is this?” Rickard demanded, as the acolytes descended upon him, arms wrapping about his limbs like human rope. He was pulled from the chair, his thrashing impotent beneath their grasp.

            Hjolmar rose from his seat, but his face was vacant. It was as though he were listening to someone not present, lost in whatever memory had consumed him earlier.

Rickard thrashed and screamed his defiance as they carried him from the room, all muttering unintelligibly beneath their hoods. He called out to the tower menials, to the chamberlains that had served him for years, but it was if they could neither see nor hear him.

            Something collided with the back of his head, and the world spiraled into liquid blackness.

…

He awoke in a chamber he had never seen before. While not the dungeon, the room had long since been converted from a welcoming stateroom. The floor was stone, and the walls were splattered with hastily-cleaned gore, like a watercolor exclusively in red. Symbols dotted the walls without pattern or meaning, and they seemed to writhe into and away from each other in Rickard’s periphery.

            Rickard himself was chained to a metal frame, though the details of its shape were invisible to him. He felt half-rusted iron bars pushing into his now naked back, and a collar of similar make dug uncomfortably into his throat. He tried to wriggle free, but the rest of his body was bound in similar fashion.

            He screamed when he saw his father. Hjolmar Volkord lay dead at the center of a red rune, whatever it had been painted in still wet and flowing. The shape oozed malice, as if the collection of lines possessed a greater hatred than any human could imitate. Black ichor ran from Hjolmar’s scalp, the iron crown that seemed so much a part of him newly absent. Rickard’s panic became horror as the corpse of his father seemed to only barely imitate the human. He seemed the work of a novice painter, full of detail but lacking the realism of a true master.

            His eyes focused on Sigmund, the emaciated man only now warranting notice. His robes had not changed, but now seemed a willful mockery of Sigmar’s church rather than a byproduct of his work. He held Hjolmar’s crown high, and the crude metalwork of it seemed to glow in his hands. The skin of the man’s fingers had sublimated to a charred black where they met the iron.

            His acolytes stood in a circle, a candle raised in one hand, their perfect knives the other. They chanted low in a language Rickard had never heard before. Blood ran thick from working lips. Rickard’s vision swam and bulged near their wounded mouths, as if the air itself tried to flee from the words.

            Sigmund’s were intelligible, and cut through the chant with utter clarity.

            “Oh Blood God, who strengthens our arms for which we spill your prize, lend me now your gaze. One of your chosen needs a life longer than is given, that he may operate the crank of sacrifice long into the coming days.”

            “Accept now a host of his blood, a vessel for his soul; that slaughter may come again in your name upon our humble plane.”

            Eight men, their faces masked in cloth tied at their necks, stepped from behind Rickard. Each bore a shallow nail that dripped with the same ichorous blood that poured from Hjolmar’s skull.

            Sigmund continued to chant, but Rickard was no longer listening. He writhed in his bindings, tearing skin as he twisted violently against the rusted iron. His heart hammered in his chest. He felt a level of dread he thought impossible, compounded by the ignorance of whatever this abomination of man and ritual signified.

            His last thoughts as the ring of metal descended upon his scalp were not of his own doom, but of a fear for Ellyn. Would these warped cultists come for her? Had they killed her already?

            Such thoughts fled as his iron bindings became black chains burning hot against soft skin. The chant of the cultists deafened his mind’s voice as they became the howl of volcanic wind.

 

**King Volkord**

**2518**

_Oh, to be young again._

It was not the first time the thought had surfaced these past days. He flexed young fingers, tensed muscles not yet withered by age.

            He breathed ashen air into strong lungs, and felt a fresh corpse pulp beneath his booted stride. Hannesberg was no more. The capital, once his prized endeavor, stood empty in its brass enormity. His work of art had become the island itself, a blighted hellscape that was tribute to Khorne’s domain. Black clouds spat thunder amidst a blizzard of ash, choking the life from forests and their scheming denizens with stunning haste.

            But the overture, his opus, was only just taking shape. The Empire had come; their immense ships and innumerable soldiers crowded the island from all sides. For two-hundred years Volkord had awaited this moment, and it fulfilled every expectation.

The Empire fought with only the bile a personal slight could produce.

            Such fury propelled the invasion. Volkord smiled as he imagined the embarrassment that must have fuelled such a crushing strike. That he had ruled for hundreds of years beneath their collective noses must have been the transcendence of wounded pride.

            And so it unfolded about him, the war that would complete the murder of Svarland. The dwarves fought with suicidal conviction, as they had since that first, distant war. What few compunctions remained to them were now stripped as their home choked on its own ashes.

So many decades of patient indoctrination had delivered the ferocity of his own warriors, all in promise to this moment. He would allow neither himself nor his enemies a rout, such was the base act of a mongrel dogs. Only in true _battle_ , war of impartial savagery, could the Blood God’s name be venerated.

            He was the eye, the intersection between eight points of advance upon the enemy. The storm of battle raged, his chosen knights of empowered flesh and steel reaping the enemy as if parting wheat.

            He unsheathed his sword, daemon metal hissing in the particulate wind. He could feel its hunger, a bloodlust that overflowed from tool to wielder like a creeping disease. He strode forward, his own forces receding tidal from the advance.

            He closed with the enemy. Arrows burst into hair-fine splinters as they impacted his skin, and rifle balls fragmented into harmless shrapnel. The countless infantry were as toys to him; objects of small scale and nonexistent depth to be tossed aside as he saw fit. They charged to meet him, distant cavalrymen maintaining the useless hail of bullets.

            Volkord swung his weapon two-handed, though he could not muster any interest for these precursors to his prize. It was not the clean death reserved for history’s many worthy opponents. Instead of coming cleanly apart, the infantrymen clotted on the end of his blade like manure upon the shovel. The distractions folded about his blade, tiny bones snapping as their fellows encased them in their own grizzly deaths of their own, momentum pulping the soldiers into layers of red glue and impacted skin.

            _Valka would have enjoyed such a battle._

The thought seemed to materialize from nothing. A driving sword nearly took his eye out as he was briefly frozen by the anomalous concept. Who was Valka? He did not know, though the name seemed distantly familiar.

A feeling came with it, something entirely alien to him. Was this regret? Nostalgia? Weak feelings. Distractions. However brief, he was vaguely unnerved by their presence, and he dismissed them as he continued to dissect the Empire’s resistance.

             The rogue emotions did not trouble him again, as his prize finally deigned to grace the field of battle. The black clouds parted, a minute tear that nevertheless appeared to glow with heaven’s own light. A shaft of gold cut through the hellish atmosphere, and from the rent in Volkord’s perfect ceiling descended Emperor Karl Franz.

            The Imperial maggots cheered, an elated cry rendered insulting beside the magnificence of their lord. He was astride a griffon, majesty solidified in its own right, armor of brilliant gold wrapped about his regal frame. In his hand, held high beneath the beams of holy light, was _Gal Maraz_. The hellblade keened in his hand, singing in elation at so magnanimous a foe. Volkord could only match its excitement.

            The sea around Volkord parted; they too had known this was to be the centerpiece. All who saw their warlords meet froze in witness of what was to come.

            The griffon landed before him, vast wings whipping up clouds of gray sleet. Franz swung about and stepped clear of the mount, falling debris only now beginning to collect on the crest of his plumed helm.

            Volkord spread his arms wide. “He finally comes. Long have I waited for such a challenge, Emperor Franz. Long have I sought an opponent worthy of my power, for all other foes have withered before my presence. Come, let us do battle worthy of the cruel gods who-“

            “I’d heard tales of the daemon king of Svarland,” Franz said, his voice mundane in the face of Volkord’s unearthly timbre. “Yet before me stands only a man.”

            All at once, Volkord’s mind ran empty of platitudes.

He hacked at the tiny man. He let the hellblade scream. He let the fury at such a slight fuel his limbs with killing power.

            Franz swung _Gal Maraz_ , a disciplined arc that betrayed no effort of wielding such a heft. The hellblade exploded in Volkord’s hands, its roar of bloodlust suddenly transformed into wretched agony as the shards spun distant in localized pirouettes.

            Volkord had no time to contemplate this impossibility before another hammer strike mashed his left arm into his body, vambrace pitting flush with the plackard beneath. Volkord staggered, his face a mask of pain.

            _Pain_. Another foreign sensation. He screamed his defiance, disbelieving of the sudden, terminal change. He strode forward, in time for another blow to his knee. The agony was white-hot anathema to decades of invincibility, and the leg crumpled beneath him.

            Humiliation cut into him as he felt himself kneel. He tried to rise, tried to take a stance, any stance, but this one of supplication. He looked up at Karl Franz, the man’s face twisted with bored disdain. He raised _Gal Maraz_. Volkord felt his face warp with indignation.

            “This not my fate! I am the Blood God’s chosen! I am the butcher of dynasties! Such is not the fate of Hjol-“

            The hammer fell.

…

He was falling. The clouds roiled black and violent, the ground opposite an immense stream of slaughter.

            Black chains seared limbs that were not his, pain knifing into decrepit, wrinkled skin. Whose hands were these? Whose pain was this? Fear gripped him, a pit more dark and terrible than any human emotion.

            He looked up, pyroclastic wind burning agony into his veins. Others were chained to his descent; blackened figures of mummified, cracked skin thrashed weakly against their own bindings, their toothless mouths pulled into soundless screams.

            Above him hung an outlier. Its skin too was blackened, its features hollow and creased with fathomless age, but its lipless mouth remained shut. Tears of blood ran watery from eyes of frigid blue, each stark against the hellish sepia that drowned all else. The stare was like twin shards of ice through Volkord’s heart.

            He tried to turn his head away, not comprehending why this corpse unnerved him so. The charred bindings dug deeper, and forced his head upward like a superheated vice.

            He started screaming then, but no sound came from his desert throat.

            In the time required for Volkord’s headless body to crumple to the ashen ground, an eternity had already passed in the Hel of his soul. On and on he fell, a spectacle ever mocked by laughing daemons.

            But the ground never came.

  
             

 


End file.
